Blu-ray Review: K-20: THE LEGEND OF THE BLACK MASK

This month, Manga UK brought Shimako Sato's adventure film K-20: The Legend of the Black Mask to Blu-ray.  This is a film that has kind of divided our own writers here at ScreenAnarchy, and I must admit, even I am of two minds about it. 

First, let's discuss what K-20 intends to be:  The intention behind this film was to create a rollicking action-adventure film set in Japan that only exists in the imagination, a Japan where World War II never happened.  The result of this tangential history is that the class gap has widened to the point of absurdity, where those who are born poor are obligated by law to remain that way, and you are born into your caste and profession.  From this desperation rises K-20, a Robin Hood character admired by the poor and hunted by the rich.  K-20 dresses all in black, topped off with the titular black mask, and is a master of disguise known as the fiend with 20 faces.  When lowly, but talented, acrobat Heikicki Endo (Takeshi Kaneshiro is probably his most prominent Japanese film role to date) is duped into accepting the blame for a crime committed by the fiend, we get a less rosy picture of the supposed champion of the poor, and the chase begins!

K-20 really has a great amount of heart behind it.  I think of it as trying the sate the same yen that Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Phantom, and The Rocketeer were aiming for.  You'll notice that only one of those films really hit the target.  This is a hard balance to strike.  I like K-20, I really do!  I first saw the film at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas in 2009, and I think I was probably the most excited person in the auditorium.  For me, all of the most important factors in making this film succeed really work.  The action works, the comedy works, the adventure works, it all goes pretty smoothly.  The film's biggest problem is all the stuff in between those fantastic beats.  The film just goes on for too long.  At well over two hours, the plot is just stretched too thin, the characters are given far more "development" than they actually need.  What a film like this needs, in my opinion, is types.  That is why the serials to which K-20 is a kind of homage were so successful. 

The serials from the 30's and 40's, the kind that inspired Spielberg to make Raiders, are perfect as they are, and that is what Spielberg understood that makes Raiders of the Lost Ark a classic, and K-20 just good.  I don't care about Kogoro Akechi's fiance's background.  She's a damsel in distress, perhaps a handy one, but still, a damsel in distress.  This film could lose a good 20 minutes and it would be tighter and cleaner, without a lot of loose ends to try and tie up in the end.  I'm pretty sure the director was trying to avoid this very problem, because the film feels so very light for most of its running time, but there are just those few places where it gets really bogged down, and they test an audience who may just be thinking, "get on with it!"

I know I made a lot of it, but it is a rather small quibble in the great scheme of things.  Takeshi Kaneshiro shines in this film, his sense of humor and his ability to keep Heikichi Endo light and optimistic without becoming Dudley Dooright makes the character worth watching.  His training montage is a lot of fun. It is great watching he/his stunt team running through fantasy Japan and jumping from roofs while practicing what seems like strangely anachronistic parkour.  Genji (Kunimura Jun) as Heikichi's mentor and his wife, whose name I'm blanking on, are really great in their roles as comic relief/emotional support.  They provide most of the appropriate emotional resonance in the film, and they are great together and with Kaneshiro's Endo. 

K-20 is a fun ride, but just a bit too long.  I'll certainly watch it again, but I wish they'd had a heavier hand in the cutting room.

Onto Manga UK's Blu-ray presentation!

This is not the first English friendly Blu-ray of this film, it has been out in Hong Kong for a while, however, this is the first with English friendly extras, which is why I am most interested.  It is obvious that a lot of work went into this film between special effects and VFX, and I was hoping for some interesting stuff about that.  The Blu-ray does have a behind-the-scenes featurette, but at only about 25 minutes, it only really scratches the surface of what went into making this film, which looks like it was probably a huge undertaking.  Much of the time in that featurette was dedicated to back-slapping and relatively little to the making-of.  This is not Manga's fault, I would guess this was licensed from the Japanese company and subtitled.  This kind of thing is common.  The other extras on the disc are introductions and Q & A from the premiere of the film in Japan.  Again, not a whole lot of stuff with real substance, in fact, you get the impression after a couple of minutes that even the cast and crew of the film are over it.

The video aspect of the film is very competent.  Unfortunately for any company that releases Japanese films on home video, many of them are somewhat dull in their presentations, even theatrically.  The image on this disc is very clean, I don't recall any marks or flecks.  The image is very sharp, the colors appear to be accurate from what I remember in the theater.  Nothing really pops, but the color scheme of the film isn't really all that vibrant to begin with.  You can really see the advantages of HD when the CG and VFX start up.  The first place in the film where I was really impressed visually was when a Tesla coil cranks up in the first few minutes, it looked fantastic.  The film seeks to give the impression of a subdued and almost grimy Japan, and this transfer conveys that feeling perfectly.

The audio fares quite a bit better.  Manga UK have provided a Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 track (which strangely appears to be the default track), and a wonderfully full and robust DTS-HD 5.1 track.  The DTS-HD track is fantastic, the surrounds are used to wonderful effect during action sequences, the low end is very potent and fills the room nicely.  At one point there is a large explosion and I could feel the bass from my couch, good stuff!

Overall, if you are looking for a Blu-ray edition of K-20 and you need English options, this is a great way to go.  The disc is locked to region B, so for all of you British/European readers, you're in luck!  Not so much for we here in the States.   Now is the time to invest in region free hardware, people!  Not just for this disc, but for so many others!