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Cast/Crew
Japan
director
Ryuhei
Kitamura
script
Isao
Kiriyama
cast list
Atsushi
Sakurai
Kanae
Uotani
Yumi Kikuchi
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 f you look at
"Longinus" as nothing more than a slight, "no need to
bother" detour for Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura, there's really
nothing wrong with it. Of course that still doesn't mean there's anything
remotely interesting or worthwhile about it, either. In-between what must have
been mammoth work on "Godzilla: Final Wars" and the upcoming
"Versus 2", one could see Kitamura taking a week off, retiring to a
warehouse with some friends, and then deciding to make a movie on the spur of
the moment.
Well, a short movie, anyway. At exactly 35 minutes,
"Longinus" isn't really much of a movie -- in terms of length and,
unfortunately, story. As with most of Kitamura's films, style and a singular
good idea (a movie premise) takes center stage. In this case, the style is old
hat and ratty, like the hero's clothes, and the story reads like something a
5-year old would write. If that 5-year old was inflicted with a strong case of
simplistic idiocy, that is.
The story of "Longinus" takes place in a not too
distant future where a neverending war has ravaged the land and caused much
misery and death. (Or at least that's what we're told, as the film itself is set
entirely inside (and, for a brief second or two, outside) a dinky, dark, and
wholly nondescript warehouse.) At said warehouse, a nurse and two soldiers say
goodbye to the only attending doctor, who dies as the film opens, but not before
delivering a droll monologue about life and death, how everything must die, and all
the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey, I've been for a walk, on a winter's
day --
Oh wait, sorry,
that's the lyrics from "California Dreaming". I'm sorry, that's very
unprofessional of me.
Back to our movie.
After the doctor has been cremated, the
warehouse/hospital's three remaining occupants get ready to be airlifted to
another location. Before that can happen, however, they receive company from a
small squad of soldiers, led by a tough-as-nails "Commander" strapped
with a gigantic sidearm. The squad is carrying a box containing the Spear of
Longinus, the mythical weapon that (literally) took a stab at Jesus while he was
crucified back in olden times. The squad's mission: take the spear to their
leader. The squad is also carrying a wounded soldier, who as it turns out has
been bitten by something fast, with long teeth, and --
You guessed it. Our futuristic tale of love and war (well,
mostly talk of war) is actually about vampires. For you see, being the clever
critters they are, the vampires mostly stay in the shadows, and only comes out
en masse to feed when humans go about killing each other during one of our
lapses of sound judgment, i.e. warfare on a global scale. And since this is the
war to end all wars, the vampires are having a ball. Or at least that's what
characters keep telling us. In truth, we never really see any of the misery,
death, and warfare that everyone keeps jabbering about. In this case, the theory
of "show, don't tell" is nonexistent.
But wait, that's not the end of our little movie. As it
turns out, a mysterious man in ratty clothes (including a ratty, but strangely
very stylish trenchcoat) has been following the soldiers. The man claims that a
vampire bit the injured soldier, and soon she will become a vampire herself. The
vampires, the man helpfully informs our doubting soldiers, wants the Spear of
Longinus because it has the power to destroy them.
Never you mind the how's, why's, and when's. They just are, okay?
Moving on...
Since half of the film's 35 minutes have been taken up with
one long dull exposition after another, that only leaves about 10 or so minutes
of actual action. And even then there isn't really all that much action,
unfortunately. At one point the soldiers spread out in search of their missing
(and now vampiric) comrade, but apparently Kitamura spent most of the budget on
catering, because most of the killings take place offscreen. That is, if you
count a character screaming and then falling down as "killings".
Later, the vampire bad guy arrives, and has a duel with
the guy in the ratty trenchcoat. Except the guy playing the hero isn't much of
an actor, and apparently isn't much of a fighter, either, because compared to
the action in Kitamura's previous works, the minor fisticuffs involved in
"Longinus" is laughable at best and shamefully embarrassing at worst.
A little web-based research lets slip that the hero is played by a popular
Japanese pop star, which may account for the stiff acting and zero onscreen
charisma. That is, if you consider stray strands of hair falling over one's eye
acting.
Familiar faces from
Kitamura's films populate the rest of the cast, but overall, everyone overacts
so much that it's not worth pointing them out. The woman playing the nurse (who
for some reason wears what looks like Victorian-era supermodel clothes,
including very stylish pumps) spends most of her time looking dour and not
getting involved in the story. Apparently the only reason she even existed at
all was to express the script's juvenile 5th grade level take on
life, death, and hope.
Yawn, indeed.
For those used to Kitamura's oeuvre,
"Longinus" can best be described as having all the pretentiousness (re:
dull, monotonous, and completely lacking in originality or insight) of "Alive",
and the pointlessness of "Aragami".
In truth, it's a good thing "Longinus" is only 35 minutes long, as its
razor thin story and scrambled new age mumble jumbo are certainly not enough to
accommodate a feature length film. Actually, if one were to be brutally honest,
"Longinus", as it currently stands, is probably already 34 minutes too
long; anything past the minute mark is just taking up space better spent on
another "Twins" movie.
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