Year:
2006
Length: 90min
Role: Grave
Director:
Yuji Shimomura
Action Director:
Tak Sakaguchi
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Average:
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Death
Trance
"An unknown time. An
unknown place. Without reason. With no future. His only desire
is... destruction."
I found out about this
movie by accident, and boy am I glad I did. I bought the Devil
May Cry 3 artbook Note of Nought and it had an interview with
Yuji Shimomura because he was the action director. But in
addition to the interview, it also had a little segment on his
new movie, Death Trance, and that Tak was in it. I shrieked with
joy and quickly went to the website they provided. I was
absolutely blown away by the trailer and immediately ordered it.
I obsessed over it for days while waiting for it to arrive,
watching the trailers over and over again. It finally came on
the day I had to visit the Convergence convention. All I could
do before heading out was hug the box cooing "I love you,
pretty box!!" and then spend Convergence showing my friends
the trailer... over and over.
On my way back from the
convention, I picked up some double cheese and pepperoni stuffed
crust pizza and prepared myself for a night of Death Trance. But
I didn't prepare myself enough. As an artist at heart, I am
highly sensitive to beauty. If I take in too much prettiness too
fast, my brain experiences a meltdown from sensory overload.
It's probably the closest to orgasm I can get outside of sex. As
blissful as such an unbridled high is, it is also terrifying
because I lose all control of my thoughts. To avoid all this, I
usually try to desensitize myself gradually to things I know
might trigger it. I didn't think I would need to take
precautions with Death Trance, but I was terribly mistaken.
It's not all that hard to
make me happy. I like pretty things. I like blood. I like blood on
pretty things. But this? This was something else. I expected Tak
to look gorgeous, but he utterly surpassed my expectations in
every respect. I swear the older he gets the more he looks like
a younger Johnny Depp. The monk, by the way (Takamasa
Suga), wasn't bad either... not bad at all. The fight scenes were amazing, and I had
to stop and rewind in several places just to soak in the
coolness of it all. I also had to take several breaks to pace
around and calm down because the movie was actually good
and entertaining - it seemed too good to be true. Then came the
blood. Beautiful, beautiful blood without the icky gore. I gaped
awestruck as chaotic neurons shot sparks in my head. I didn't
know what to do. I had to physically bite down on my hand to
keep myself from running up a wall.
There was a scene where
Tak's character Grave was being drained by humanoid spiders.
They had him seemingly helpless in their grasp, but then his
eyes flashed red, he tore away from them, and beat them down
with inhuman strength. This instantly reminded me of Devil
Trigger in Devil May Cry, and linked Tak with Dante in my mind.
Brain went haywire and blanked out. I knew I had to take a
longer break. I scurried off to my computer and harassed anyone
I saw online with incoherent ramblings. I couldn't keep pace
with my thoughts, I couldn't control them, I couldn't calm
down... time passed and it wouldn't go away. I was getting
worried, but enjoying every minute of it.
With no other option
before me, I forced myself to come back and sit civilly through
the rest of the movie. Still, it was very hard to contain myself
and I couldn't help uttering animalistic noises every few
seconds to release tension. The final fight, though not much for
action, was visually stunning! Like a Hong Kong martial arts
flick meets American Beauty. Blood and rose petals floating
everywhere. It was great. But the ending made me want to throw
the pizza box at the screen. Terrible cliffhanger with no
resolution.
Tak was the action
director for Death Trance. As he explains in his interview, he
felt fights with fake punches didn't look realistic enough, so
he decided to do away with the fake punch
altogether. He would
actually hit the stuntmen and have them hit him. Not hard, but
solidly enough to look real onscreen. Brilliant, sweetheart.
back
to shrine
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