HTF BluRay Review: Tekkonkinkreet

Sam Posten · 10-25-2007, 12:25 AM

Tekkonkinkreet

BluRay Title: Tekkonkinkreet
Rated: R
Screen format: 1080P 2.35:1 High Definition
Studio: Sony Pictures
First theatrical release: 23 December 2006 (Japan)
Previously released on other media? Day and Date with Widescreen DVD
Director: Michael Arias
Starring: The voices of: Kazunari Kitagawa, Yu Aoi, Yusuke Iseya, Kankuru Kudo, Min Tanaka, Nau Omori, Yoshinori Okada, Morisanchuu, Masahiro Motoki
Sound Formats: English & Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1, Japanese PCM Uncompressed 5.1
Length: 111 Minutes
Subtitles: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French

Plot: 2.5/5
In the middle of a burgeoning metropolis, Treasure Town is an isolated island that refuses to accede to progress. Treasure Town is special to its citizens, from the factories, to the yakuza, all the way down to street urchins Black and White. Black considers Treasure Town HIS town, and he will neither allow new gangs to move in or allow the yakuza to control him. White is childishly naive, perhaps, developmentally disabled, but still a survivor on the streets and possessed of a boundless imagination. When a new yakuza boss begins to move in, Black and White are their primary targets, although White is somewhat protected by Police as he is taken from Black and starts to be assimilated into society. But Black and White are two parts of a broken whole, one that is inextricably linked to treasure town, regardless of the pressures from outside of their city.

I’m told that Tekkonkinkreet is a made up word that references reinforced concrete, and it is true that Treasure Town is as big a character in this film as either Black or White. Tekkon is unusual in many ways, first it is made by an award winning Japanese Anime company (Studio 4C, who is most famous for The Animatrix), but is directed by an outsider, first time director Michael Arias, who moved to Japan when he was 13 and became infatuated with the Manga that the film is based upon. It is a very western inspired anime, toning down some of the more jarring aspects (such as the doe eyes) while integrating a whole host of artistic media, including pen drawings, water colors and fusing them together via CGI in a completely unprecedented way.

Viewing the included extras, it is clear that Arias was both obsessed and over his head, yet he largely succeeds. Although Tekkon is a hard to follow, complex, bloody and somewhat over long film at 111 minutes, the visuals are absolutely striking, the music by Londoners Plaid is subtle, moody and perfect to the story, and the story is a bit more approachable by Anime newbies. While the story itself is wrapped around themes of modernization, trust, hope and survival, it has at its heart the bonds of brotherhood and manages to make its surreal ending somewhat believable.

Sound Quality: 4/5
As noted above, there are standard English and Japanese DD 5.1 tracks in addition to an uncompressed 5.1 PCM track. I listened to all three and found them quite similar and couldn’t even give a quantifiable edge to the uncompressed track. The English dubbing is probably the best I’ve ever heard although purists will scream about that. One thing the English track has going for it is the horrible job the subtitles do, as they are often on two lines with the top one layered over the movie itself without regard to coloring, and they are often unreadable in overly bright scenes. The effects are top rate, with superb split screen panning used heavily, a decent amount of bass kick in the fights, and a well centralized vocal track in all languages. Musically the score provided by Plaid is probably the hidden gem of this film, as their evocative electronic stylings are overlaid throughout the film and help establish the emotion of Treasure Town and its inhabitants. I had never heard of Plaid before but I’ve since checked out a few tracks on iTunes and they have some interesting compositions (Check out Ilasas for one!).

Visual Quality: 4/5
From a transfer perspective Tekkon is truly flawless. There were zero instances of any kind of noise, pops, scratches, edge enhancement or other artifacts either digital or analogue in nature. It is mostly a bright and lively film that utilizes cutting edge CGI integrating hand drawn cells and backgrounds into 3D perspectives, giving the characters a fluidity and range of motion that is simply impossible using traditional methods. There are however some scenes which are a bit more grounded, toning down the color to reflect the dire straights of Black and White, but this is the nature of the muted color palette of their environment and not any defect of the transfer. If there are any nits that could be picked with this film it is that there’s almost TOO much going on to take it all in at any one time and that there is such a broad cross section of different artistic media that once you are getting used to the idea of one effect its gone and the movie is on to something different. Additionally, the subtitles are very poorly integrated as noted above. If you like to listen to films in their native tongue to get the nuanced emotion of the original actors and rely on the subtitles to get the actual plot, Tekkon could be a hard film for you.

Extra Features: 2.5/5
There are 3 features worth noting in addition to a handful of BluRay Trailers. First up is a feature length commentary track which I have not gotten to yet. Next up is a very bizarre, stilted and boring conversation between Arias and Plaid, held in a bar and it seems like Arias is extremely sleep deprived but still excited about his film and Plaid’s contributions. Finally, there is a 43 minute featurettte detailing the long haul that Arias undertook to get this film made, focusing on some of the technical aspects of producing the vast amounts of animation on a very tightly controlled budget. Thankfully, this featurette also covers some of the stunning CGI work that was employed but not enough to move this along at more than a snail’s pace. Arias takes us through some of his favorite haunts in Japan and its clear he is in love with the country and its people, yet this love does not translate as well in this featurette as it does in the film itself.

Overall: 3/5 (not an average)
Overall Tekkonkinkreet was an interesting film and I was impressed both sonically and visually, but there are a lot of caveats to that. It is very hard to follow and one must be willing to accept that the artistry and emotion are more important than the constant bloodletting and action would let on. As an anime I also find it a lot more appealing from an American/Western perspective than most of the other representative films I’ve been exposed to, but again that has limits and I found the character of White to be exhausting and boring at the same time, yet Black was a lot more interesting, able to be the hero White needed him to be, but flawed at the same time. Rounding out this by putting such detail onto high definition transfers really works well here, and the scores for those aspects speaks for themselves. I’m not sure I would have enjoyed digging too much further into a pile of extras here, the two of the three I spent the most time with were more than plenty, so I can’t complain too much there. In the end, Tekkon is a good place to start with if you are new to Anime, as it deftly blends the anime aesthetics with a more traditional Hollywood vibe.

Paul Arnette · 10-25-2007, 08:35 AM

Thanks for the review. I'm relatively new to anime myself, but I enjoyed this movie a lot when I rented it from Netflix. I admit that it wasn't the easiest story to follow, but I found the theme of codependency between good and evil or Ying and Yang, if you will, to be an interesting one. I'll probably buy it once I can find it a bit cheaper.

Eric F · 10-25-2007, 10:47 AM

Really? I thought the story was pretty easy to follow, given the names of two lead characters it pretty much said everything right there. I enjoyed it.

If you're into anime you'll proabably like it, it's definitely worth picking up, the animation style, while different than usual is quite beautiful in its own way.

Aaron Silverman · 10-25-2007, 12:42 PM

"Hard to follow for non-anime fans" is a pretty tough comment to interpret.

Sam Posten · 10-25-2007, 01:21 PM

What I mean by that is that Anime afficionados will certainly have picked up on a lot of the stylized looks, pacing, vibe, and feel of the genre and will be comfortable concentrating on the complex relationship between Black, White and Treasure town, while most western viewers will struggle to feed on all of the above and sort out the merits of this particular film away from the trappings of Anime.

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