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| ANDROMEDIA. Starring - Hiroko Shimabukuro - Takao Uehara - Eriko Imai - Hitoe Niigaki. Director - Takashi Miike. 1998. After the death of his wife, Professor Hitomi begins to record the memories of her onto computer disc. His work suddenly takes a turn when the abrupt death of his daughter Mai forces him to complete his work. He manages to create an artificial intelligence with the physical proportions of his daughter complete with her memory patterns. She is called AI but as time progresses she begins to take on the traits of Mai, eventually becoming her, albeit in an artificial universe. As her memories blossom things get complicated as her love for Yu begins to surface and with it also a secret organisation intent on acquiring her at all costs. For the most part Andromedia feels nothing like a Takashi Miike movie. Initially it is nothing more than a tragic love story which somehow manages to descend into utter absurdity. It’s a bit like eating a fresh Granny Smiths apple only to discover a dirty little drunken maggot running around the core. On the outside the movie is fresh and full of life and energy but deep within you find Takashi has somewhat lost the plot as he tries to make sense of the complex Lawnmower man type storyline. Personally I didn’t see the need for most of the intricate plot developments and found them simply complicating matters rather than making any sense. As I said before the love story part of Andromedia is perfect, with some beautifully shot scenes and captivating dialogues. The leads Mai and Yu develop quite a chemistry when on screen but as the movie progresses these two get so irritating I was hoping Takashi would despatch them with some kind of Yakuza inspired chainsaw massacre. It would have probably made more sense as well. What made this movie even worse was the bizarre inclusion of a boy band music video! I am not very keen on pop music and find boy/girl bands to be the epitome of everything that is bad about the UK music industry, So it goes without saying then that the fucked up inclusion of pretty dancing boys really got on my tits. Why Takashi, why? I know you cast the quartet of Speed (an allegedly popular girl band) for the money making value but why Da Pump? Is the demographic audience that important to you? A line from Mai towards the end of this movie sums it up perfectly. ‘I feel so embarrassed’. 4****stars. |
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