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 iven
the pedigree of "Aegis", it's no
surprise the film is little more than a (barely)
covert stab at nationalistic propaganda designed
to get the domestic crowd riled up and embrace
their "Japaneseness". Except there isn't
really anyone for the film to rally against,
unless you consider the chief villain, who was a
North Korean in the original book by Harutoshi
Fukui ("Lorelei"),
but is a veiled maybe-Chinese person in the movie.
In a nutshell, "Aegis" is a Japanese
take on the "Die Hard" concept, or to be
more specific, a remake of "Under
Siege". Towards the end, the film turns into
a remake of
Michael
Bay
's "The Rock", right down to a last
minute save to avert an aerial attack.
"Aegis" is set
mainly onboard the Isokaze, a Cruiser-class
Japanese naval ship on a routine training mission,
when it finds itself taken over by terrorists from
outside and traitorous crewmen from within. The
bad guys' agenda is to use a stolen super secret
American weapon to gas
Tokyo
and murder tens of millions. That leaves the
Isokaze's Chief Petty Officer, the sensible
Sengoku (Hiroyuki Sanada) to save the day. The
middle-age sailor gets able assist from brash tyke
Kisaragi (Ryo Katsuji), who as it turns out is
actually a spy sent by Japanese spook chief Atsumi
(Koichi Sato) to monitor, and if necessary, act to
stop the terrorists. Not surprisingly, things
don't quite go as planned, leaving us with another
"Die Hard on a Ship" situation.
Resemblances to American
action films aside, even those used to the
measured pacing of Japanese storytelling will find
"Aegis" plodding at best and tedious at
worst. Director Junji Sakamoto tries to keep
things interesting by highlighting the characters,
although it probably wasn't such a good idea to
have such a large cast. As well, we're dealing
with cardboard cutouts here, including duty-bound
heroes Sengoku and Kisaragi, and the robot-like
not-North Korean North Korean terrorists. The
traitorous Japanese don't even have any real
incentive to be bad guys, and spends most of the
movie giving the impression they hadn't thought
this whole Benedict Arnold thing through.
Action-wise,
"Aegis" offers a few scattered shoot
outs to keep the viewers busy until the final,
bloody gunbattle. The action scenes are not overly
realistic, which will make them even less
palatable to mainstream audiences looking for an
adrenaline rush. In a way, "Aegis" can
afford not to have great action, because at its
core the film is a thinly veiled call for
Japan
to shake off the slumber of its 60 year peace and
become engaged in the world once more. To this
end, almost every Japanese character gets to make
a rah-rah speech about what it means to "be
Japanese" at one point or another. After a
while, you can practically sense when a character
is about to climb onto the soapbox. And my God do
they make speeches. Lots and lots of speeches.
For those wondering, the
Aegis of the title is little more than a
throwaway, peripheral McGuffin. According to the
film, because the Isokaze is armed with the Aegis,
a supposedly high-tech, super duper defense
system, it is effectively invulnerable to all
manner of exterior threat. (Never you mind that
this notion is never demonstrated to any degree of
satisfaction, we're just supposed to accept it.)
Which if true, would make the Isokaze and all the
ships equipped with Aegis the most powerful naval
vessels in the world, not to mention the universe!
Of course this doesn't necessarily explain why the
Japanese doesn't just send in wave after wave of
jets armed with napalm, or wave after wave of
Destroyers to take out the Isokaze before it
reaches its destination and fires its payload.
Then again, I'm not a highly paid Japanese
screenwriter, so what do I know.
Those familiar with action
movie clichés will get a kick out of counting the
number of times "Aegis" dips into the
"Under Siege" pool. Not surprisingly,
the bureaucrats back at home who must assemble in
a room to negotiate with the terrorists are
idiots, led by a Prime Minister who'd rather be
anywhere but there. And of course there's a
mysterious government spook that is responsible
for setting the whole thing in motion to begin
with, although curiously his complicity only gets
him fired. Go figure. I'd think jail term, or
maybe a firing squad, might be more appropriate.
Non-Japanese viewers won't
find a whole lot about "Aegis" to get
excited over. At over two hours, the film is much
too long, and spends too much time making slogans
that will seem repetitive very quickly. The
villains are non-entities, existing simply to run
around the ship and get gunned down by Sengoku and
Kisaragi. "Aegis" also loses points by
cowardly refusing to name the nationality of the
villains, although this might be for the benefit
of the film's potential Korean box office, given
that South Koreans are quite insistent that no one
talk bad about their Northern brothers, even in
the movies. (James Bond, anyone?)
"Aegis'" one
notable addition to the genre is the way it
provides backstory for its characters, which it
does by using flashbacks to important moments in
each person's life. While this doesn't add very
much to the overall story, it is an interesting
technique, and does help to flesh out the
characters somewhat. Alas, we can't get flashbacks
for everyone, and the not-North Korean North
Koreans end up as emotionless automatons devoid of
personality. The good guys fare better, but it's
too bad the story is so familiar, derivative, and
lacking. If you're not going to be original, then
at least offer up a big, loud, and dumb action
movie in its stead. "Aegis" simply
refuses to give the non-Japanese audience anything
to sink its teeth into. |
