Tag: movie review

Terminator Meets Lone Wanderer – Blame! Movie Review

When you are nursing a broken toe and ordered bed rest, Netflix is the way to go. The cherry on top is to pass the time watching a movie that explores humanity’s existential struggle for survival against an out-of-control, dystopian machine world. 

I know, I wasn’t really in the mood for:

Say hello to Blame! Yes, that exclamation mark on the title is not a typo. Much like the 2017 movie Mother! this anime and manga series is titled Blame! (The movie may be about humanity’s struggle for survival, but little do you know about my struggle to write this review while fighting against spellchecker with regarding capitalizing after an exclamation mark.)

Like any other dystopian title, Blame! focuses on humanity’s tenacity in the face of oblivion. The movie has plenty to show in the dangers of technology overwhelming society, as the characters essentially live that experience every waking moment of the plot. 

Care to guess what motivates them to keep fighting the good fight? It is the most powerful weapon of all:

Just kidding. When it is survival of the fittest, in a desolate world, family doesn’t have the usual definition. Instead, in Blame! it has more to do with community and connection. One could argue that this is even imposed by the very reality our characters face, driven as they are by a raw instinct for survival, amid gradual annihilation. 

So who are they? 

Meet the Electro-Fishers. 

They are a small and desperate band of humans trying to survive starvation within “The City”, a colossal megastructure that functions as a Dyson sphere (not a new vacuum model), engulfing what was once the Solar System. 

  • A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely surrounds a star to capture its power output. 

Continuously expanding and featuring incomprehensible architecture, the City hosts rooms as vast as planets, and environments where basic physics can shift unpredictably. Its scale is such that it is peppered with fragmented zones of ruined, ancient cities separated by miles of industrial scaffolding. 

The Builders guide the City’s persistent encroachment in outer space. They are automated, unthinking machines that continuously, wait for it, build and expand the structure. Protecting and “safeguarding” the City are the deadly Safeguard robots. They are the Terminators of Blame!, except they are far more nimble and creepier. 

Tasked with hunting down and eliminating any unregistered human presence, the Safeguard are among the primary obstacles, including the City itself, that the Electro-Fishers must confront in their battle for survival. 

You might wonder how it got to this in the first place. Well, that’s the definitive mystery of the movie, and unfortunately, we don’t get a very clear answer, but a walking symbolic exposition of the issue at hand: Killy. 

Killy is our “sort-of” hero in this story. He is a mysterious cyborg who traverses the massive City in search of a human who possesses the Net Terminal Gene to restore order and stop the City’s expansion.  

With Killy, there is no “Come with me if you want to live” or “I’ll be back”. Rather, the cyborg is a silent companion of the Electro-Fishers who assists them against various enemies. Killy lets his actions speak for themselves, and for the most part, we as an audience, along with the Electro-Fishers, are left towonder about his true intentions and purpose. 

The movie’s ambiguous ending perfectly mirrors the themes of the story, its world, and the characters’ personalities. Killy’s journey to find the Net Terminal Gene reflects humanity’s persistence in the infinitely expanding City. Throughout his quest, Killy’s stoic nature contrasts with the humans’ deep desire for companionship and a place to call home. 

The premise of Blame! is a familiar sight for sci-fi fans in general, but the movie and the manga series stand out for the sheer creativity of the world in which the story unfolds. The terrifying and magnificent scale of the City remains an eerie focal point of our characters’ struggles and really puts into perspective the seemingly impossible stakes at hand. 

At the end of the day, who doesn’t like watching humans fight the good fight against a desolate world that is practically out to kill them? That is Blame! in a nutshell. 

The movie explores transhumanism, runaway AI, genetic markers as access controls, and cybernetic warfare. All this across an artificial, solar-system-sized City. After finishing the movie, I only had more questions, and while that is not really what a moviegoer would want, I think it is a great bait for those curious cats out there who might want to take a sneak peek at the manga. 

There is a lot more to Blame! in the manga series, and you can find it on Amazon Kindle or at your nearest library’s digital collection. On the other hand, the movie still stands as a decent, but quite condensed, adaptation of the work as a whole.

Fighting Demons and Overcoming Generational Trauma – K-Pop Demon Hunters Review

She can sing and dance; she has all the fans; she has two best buddies, a caring manager, and all the popularity one can desire. Still, behind her seemingly joyous disposition lies a subtle sadness that offers a window into her personal turmoil. This is Rumi from K-Pop Demon Hunters.

I know I’m a little late to the K-pop bandwagon, but I really didn’t expect this movie to hit me as deep as it did. Back in 2013, when Frozen was released, I remember the hysteria that followed suit. The songs from that movie were just about everywhere, and it got tiring pretty fast. BUT, after becoming a father and watching Frozen with my daughter, I could understand the hype. Still, I didn’t rate it very high on my list of animated movies. K-Pop Demon Hunters, though, is a whole different story.

I had the movie on my watchlist for quite some time. After my daughter kept mentioning Rumi frequently from her dayhome visits, I realized we might as well sit and watch the movie together. There I was on a Friday night, with a bowl of popcorn in my lap, getting ready to enjoy the movie with my family. An hour and a half later, my daughter gets ready for bed, and I’m sitting with a lump in my throat. The songs were great, and the animation was absolutely terrific. The comedy and gags (especially those hinting at a comical self-awareness of K-dramas) also landed really well. Most of all, the incorporation of cultural elements and a story that, while being simple and sweet, carried deeply profound messaging, hit hard.

Rumi, our protagonist, is part-demon and part-hunter. Rumi’s mentor, Celine, counsels Rumi on her mixed identity and maintains that it is a truth that must remain hidden until it can be “fixed.” Rumi keeps that secret, one which evolves into a generational trauma where one “must keep our fears and faults hidden”, and struggles with her fragmented identity while hiding it from her closest friends and Huntrix teammates, Mira and Zoey.

But, as we all know, the longer you keep such a secret, the heavier the burden. Rumi feels the weight of her identity come crashing down upon her once she meets her counterpart in Jinu, lead singer of the demon boy band (yeah, you heard that right), and a foil to Rumi. Jinu’s own regrets and guilt mirror Rumi’s struggles. The story revolves around how these two characters connect, reconcile their feelings, move forward, and a whole lot more.

I’m currently undergoing therapy to deal with some stuff in my personal life. Part of that involves third-culture kid syndrome, some generational trauma, and a dollop of internalized emotions and experiences. Put it all together, and you get me, the grown-ass adult sitting with a lump in his throat after watching K-Pop Demon Hunters.

This movie works really well on so many levels, especially with its messaging towards accepting differences and oneself, even with all our faults. Sometimes even the most well-intentioned wishes can cause hurt and pain, and sometimes this can come from those closest to us. In these moments, I’ve learned that you can find strength by trusting yourself and letting your emotions flow rather than repressing them. Being vulnerable about your emotions and misgivings don’t make you weak. It takes great strength to speak what is in your heart, and it is the best way forward to accepting oneself.

As Rumi and Jinu sing it, “We can’t fix it if we never face it.”

K-Pop Demon Hunters is a perfectly well-balanced movie for a diverse audience, and all the more reason that it has found great success. The ending certainly leaves you wanting more, and I’m glad to know that a sequel is in development. Rumi goes from hunting literal demons to battling the one within herself. The mystical barrier of the “honmoon” she has vowed to protect is a beautiful metaphor for her inner struggle and the repressed undercurrent of her emotions. Finally, her willingness to find strength by accepting herself and sharing that truth with her friends, who, in turn, embrace her, brings it all full circle with Rumi no longer hiding but shining, as she was born to be. In a way, I think that’s something we can all do for ourselves.