TETSUJIN 28: THE MOVIE (2005)

As a young boy there were a few things I wanted: a new bike for Christmas; a Big Trak (I wonder how many of you remember them?); the occasional Kinder Egg. I didn’t get the Big Trak, and I’ve never forgiven my parents for it, but the boy in this film didn’t need his folks to buy him any new toys during the festive season, as it turns out that his father (who he only vaguely remembers), made him a giant radio controlled robot that can level buildings and flatten cars. Result!
Imagine if you will, Tokyo, minding it’s own business, as it usually is just before an impending invasion/attack, when suddenly a giant robot that you eventually find out is called ‘Black Ox’ drops out of the sky. It starts smashing up the place and the local police set about shooting at it , which, as you’d expect, is totally ineffective. The robot ignores this annoyance and continues to terrorize the inhabitants. Now imagine that the only person who can save the city (and the world as it turns out) is an annoying, whimpering 12 year old called Shotaro Kaneda. But how can this brat ensure the existence of the human race? Well, in the midst of this chaos he gets a call from an old man who tells him that he used to work with his father. He then reveals that, in an underground lab, there is an equally impressive robot that hasn’t been used up to this point as it requires a particular young boy to control it. After this there are a few fights, some more plot points about the creator of the Black Ox and his son, and then the saving the world bit at the end. All very harrowing stuff I’m sure you’d agree.

Watching this film for the first time, the thing I immediately noticed were the annoying characters. Shotaro was so snivelling and pathetic that I was actively encouraging the robots to stamp on him. He wasn’t the only one though: The Nicotine addicted Police chief could have done with a firearms related accident happening to his face too. The second time I flicked through the film I had to fast forward through the sections that these two were in just so that I could get to the exciting robot fight scenes. Well, when I say exciting I really mean ‘disappointing’. OK I admit it: I’ve never, in real life, seen a couple of multi-storey mechanical men fighting, so I really don’t have a point of reference apart from the hundreds of other films/cartoons/comics that depict the mammoth battles of two heavily armoured automaton. This is why I was disappointed. The fight’s between Black Ox and Tetsujin 28 were comically bad. I can forgive the first one as it was the first time that Shotaro had picked up the controls, but after they had upgraded the robot, and put the lad through some vigorous VR training (why oh why did they have to do that?) the fights were just as, well, robotic. Tetsujin, lets face it, looks like he’s been spending too much time on the kebabs and not enough on the treadmill, but still, in a film made in this day and age, I was expecting the clashes of metal on metal to be more like the many I’ve seen before, and they just weren’t. The closest thing I can relate it to is two unfit blokes in Sumo suits having a go at each other after a night on the Sake. Think Toho's original Godzilla monsters and you'll have a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about.
Based on the best selling Manga series by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, Tetsujin 28 dose have some redeeming qualities. It’s shot rather well, with Tokyo being, yet again, the perfect disaster zone, (how anyone there gets insurance is beyond me). It was actually rather visually entertaining with the slightly dodgy CGI and the pantomime acting. Most importantly though there was some eye candy for the men in the shape of the bad guys side kick. Even though I hated the lad and the robot moved, well, like a robot, I still secretly rooted for them to save the day (but if Shotaro got squished in the course of events I don’t think I’d have shed a tear).

There are a couple of trailers and the usual sound/subtitle combinations (DTS/5.1 Japanese; English subtitles). This wasn’t a boxed copy so we didn’t receive the collectable booklet, but we did get what I believe is one of the best extras ever: a build-it-yourself cardboard robot. I can’t wait to have that standing on my desk!