K-20: Kaijin nijû mensô den
Tags: romantic, mystery, action, sci-fi

Plot synopsis:
Holy Steampunk, Sherlock Holmes! Screen idol Takeshi Kaneshiro is back and this time hes showing his respect for Lupin, Raffles and all the great thieves and masked penny dreadful heroes of the turn-of-the-century in this massive steampunk blow-out directed by Shimako Sato, one of the few female directors in the big budget end of the Japanese film industry.Its 1949 and World War II never happened. Nikola Tesla has just won a Nobel Prize rather than dying in obscurity and the Japanese Empire is an undying aristocracy where the rich sip tea out of bone china, while the poor die in the gutters. K-20, the Fiend with Twenty Faces, steals from the rich and gives to himself. But now, on the eve of the marriage between society princess, Yoko Hashiba, and chief of police, Kogoro Akechi, the fiend frames simple circus acrobat Hekichi Endo (Takeshi Kaneshiro) for his crimes and the poor sap is arrested and sentenced to death. But he escapes at the last minute and assumes the guise of K-20 in order to clear his good name.Starting with a falling chandelier from PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and continuing with the Tunguska Explosion, Tesla coils, gyrocopters and all manner of pulp touchstones, this flick is constantly zooming, panning, gliding and skidding to a stop, suffused with old fashioned showmanship and skill. For sheer entertainment value its like all the Saturday morning matinees you never saw wrapped up in one film and given a big budget gloss. But more than the skill and style, the actors are a delight. The young princess, Hashiba (Takako Matsu) describes herself as just a modest girl from a good family, but really shes a two-fisted adventurer in waiting, hemmed in by good breeding but secretly yearning to sock a baddie in the jaw and fly a helicopter into the sunset. Takeshi Kaneshiro is charm itself, and its a pleasure to spend two hours in his company. By the time the last zeppelin has cleared the screen youll want to know where you can buy a ticket and stand in line to wait for the sequel. [D-Man2010]

Review: Special effects are there, but this is first of all a movie about people.Set in an alternate 1949, where Word War II never happened, K-20 takes place in a poorer Japan, that bears many signs of the alliance with the Reich.
Yet K-20 is not the main character here: the hero is Heikichi Endo, who is framed for the crimes of K-20, beaten and imprisoned.
The most positive thing about a cheaply made film is that either the makers deliver shoddy goods (nearly every SciFi Channel movie) or they focus on story, drama and comedy which can result in the most satisfying movie.K-20 inhabits a world that's very familiar to comic book readers, alternate history what-if.
The look of the film is excellent and the effects are, as others have pointed out, very good and well conceived.
The 2 billion yen movie has the realistic special effects that you rarely see in Japanese movies and its action scenes are breath-taking especially the acrobatic stunts and famous Takeshi Kaneshiro with good musicStory: It is set in 1949 where there is no world war, which is lucky.
As Heikichi races to find what K-20 is going after, it leads to the final battle between them where there happens to be a twist.Overall: This is not to be missed for Takeshi fans or those who are fans of Japanese movies.
K-20 may be a little long- the runtime is 2 hours 17 minutes but the plot is engrossing that you won't care about the time and watch how K-20 battles with Heikichi with wits and power.
It is nice to see a big-budget Japanese action movie as the past few years, there are mostly Japanese thrillers like 20th century boys and death note..
It reminded me of 90's action adventure period pieces like The Shadow and The Rocketeer, which were some of my favorite films to watch as a kid.
The film's main focus is Endo Eikichi, a circus performer who is tricked by K-20 into committing a crime and taking the blame for being K-20 himself.
From there one, Eikichi is set on a quest to catch K-20 and clear his name.The best thing about the film is its lead, Takeshi Kaneshiro as Eikichi.
He's funny, exciting, and plays up all the right things for this kind of film.
The supporting cast is great as well, made up of several veterans of Japanese film and TV.
The best action sequences utilize parkour-style stunts, but less in the way B13 does it and more in common with something like Assassin's Creed, which came to mind during the big training sequences.
While the film does get a bit preachy about its rich versus poor plot line, it remains fun and, even when it slows down, the acting keeps you engaged.
Overall, I have to say that this is one of the more enjoyable Japanese films I have seen in a while.
First, by itself, it is a rousing fun action film--superior to most of the US adaptations from graphic novels.
The only difficulty is that the identity of the villainous K-20 (and, yes, he IS a villain) is probably too easy to guess, while the hero seems at times too dense.The second level of enjoyment is how the film contributes to an understanding of Japanese culture.
Explanation of plot not necessary.Despite the lack of originality and the absurdity of the story, it turned out to be a very entertaining movie for me.
The special effects in this movie was by far the best I have seen in any Japanese films.
It's true this is nowhere near the Hollywood level, but at least it's not ridiculously fakey like every other Japanese movies that attempted to create an entire world with CGI.A funny and exciting thriller, don't think too much and just enjoy the movie..
The action part was expected, but the silly things in the movie really do work.
You could say "Spirit" silly, although the overall movie is not as silly as Spirit of course.It's a really great "Origin" movie and I guess you don't have to know the Mangas this is based on (I hadn't read/seen anything about this character, before I watched the movie).
If you like fun action movies, you can't go wrong with this one!.
This year in Singapore, he marquees a big budgeted action-mystery masked vigilante movie, and while his powers and abilities to hark back to the Batmans and Spidermans, K-20 turned out to be rather entertaining for its liberal use of special effects, comedy and some fantastic action sequences, set against at alternate Japanese universe.Which is interesting because other than the unmistakable Tower, Tokyo now known as Teito, is quite unrecognizable, and plaguing the country is a huge class and income divide between the aristocrats, and everyone else, which reads the Poor and have nots.
Doesn't make a difference actually to the story, but gives you the feeling that everything is centrally planned.While the title points to K-20, the fiend with 20 faces, the story's actually focused on Heikichi Endo (Kaneshiro) as a poor circus acrobat.
But back to Japan, Heikichi gets set up by K-20 himself, and gets framed into allowing everyone to believe he's actually the masked villain himself.
It's a fresh perspective having to watch an action movie directed by a female at the helm, and the focus here was of course on the characters.
We have Takako Matsu as the Duchess Yoko Hashiba, who isn't your standard fare damsel-in-distress, and Toru Nakamura as the police inspector Akechi Kogoro, the arch-enemy of and resident expert on K-20.It's a classic action mystery which like The Prestige has Russian scientist Teslar providing the object of tussle, a device capable of harnessing and transmitting vast electrical power across locations without the use of cables.
The plot's fairly simple, which includes an origin story for Heikichi including the antics of a hero in training, but what made it palatable was the excellent delivery by the cast, together with gorgeous sets and edge-of-your-seat action.
A key element here too is the identity of K-20, having nobody actually seen the villain in the flesh except for Heikichi himself.The story however does sag a little when it lingers on the more dramatic moments, and you'd know for sure when Kaneshiro gets replaced by stuntmen for most of the action shots not on closeup.
But as far as big-budgeted movies like these go, K-20: Legend of the Mask still came across as pretty entertaining and all primed for sequels and a franchise should the box office prove to be successful..
When I bought "K20: The Legend of the Black Mask" I believed it to be a Japanese superhero movie, but usually Takeshi Kaneshiro is great in movies, and that was the main reason for buying it, plus it was a live-action Manga movie, so what could possibly go wrong here?"K20: The Legend of the Black Mask" is not a superhero movie, not by a long shot.
The movie is about Heikichi Endo (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro) who is a circus performer getting framed for the crimes done by K20.
And the people cast for the various roles really did great jobs in fleshing out their characters and making the story come to life on the screen.
There is a lot of action in the movie, but also a lot of character development, which is really nice."K20: The Legend of the Black Mask" really surprised me, and it turned out to be much better than I had initially anticipated.
And the props and costumes were also nicely made, lots of nice touches and details, which I like."K20: The Legend of the Black Mask" is a great action movie, and it has a lot of entertainment value right from the very beginning.
If you like Japanese movies with lots of action, then this movie is well worth checking out.
Entertaining and Fun. This is possibly the first Japanese movie I have seen that isn't anime and I was very happy with it.
I really enjoyed the story that is basically a Japanese version of a Marvel superhero movie.
The movie felt like an anime made into a live action film.
It was really funny, there was plenty of action and drama and it had a solid story with a great twist.The special effects and 3D graphics were fantastic and much better than I expected.
It was refreshing to see such a clean movie that I would be happy for my kids (probably age 10+) to watch.Overall it was very entertaining and I would highly recommend it to everyone..
However, Shimako Sato's latest feature (her first in over ten years) is none of these, and offers a very different vantage on an increasingly popular national cinema.K-20: The Legend Of The Black Mask is ultimately a disposable, yet highly enjoyable romp: think Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) made as a costumed action-adventure serial.
Fairly well done light entertainment movie with good computer graphics and retro set-up.
ending, and we even have a princess.Of course, the take-over-the-world device is a rather fascinating Tesla machine, and the whole movie contains elements from more than one genre - we got the steampunk city à la Batman, the poor kids à la various Christmas movies, the costumes à la various superhero period pieces (Zorro?), the villain+scheme à la several Bond movies, the alternate history line à la "2009 Lost Memories", and of course everybody is Japanese, which added a bit of extra flavor to an otherwise stale dish.
But herein lie further problems, since the alternate history line reminded me of Okiura/Oshii's "Jin-Roh" - a very unflattering comparison, seeing how that is one of the best, and best animated movies in the universe.Now, Takeshi Kaneshiro is lovely as the main character, and it was really nice to watch him train in parkour - aka the thieves' sport (one more unflattering interference here - the games "Thief"...)(and a flattering one - "Spiderman", which cannot overshadow much), and the whole atmosphere of the city was nicely done.
Interesting Japanese fiction movie.
This is a kind of movie I'm expected from China but not Japan and it works superbly with great acting, goofy moment, and intense action.The story takes places in a fiction version of after WWII Japan is now a communist state where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Now a wanted man Endo must confront the K-20 and become a new K-20 but instead of being a villain he becomes a hero.An interesting comic book hero style from Japan that also show the dark side of communism, and corrupted society.
A fun and enjoyable superhero movie from Japan..
However this film turned out to be very fun and enjoyable with well done special effects, awesome stunt work and a plot that manages to hold your interest from start to finish.Although the film does feel a tad long sometimes it's still a fun watch.
The characters are all likable and do eventually grow on you thus encouraging you to watch on.Overall, it's a fun and enjoyable superhero movie from Japan highly recommended if your are a fan of Japanese films..
"K-20" is a visually stunning Japanese steam punk epic with a couple of promising ideas that are destroyed with a too ordinary story and a quite instable acting performance.The story takes places in an alternate history of the year 1949 in Japan where the second World war never happened.
If you observe closely, you will see many lovely details of that kind in this film.The story is set around the poor circus acrobat Endo Heikichi who needs some money to heal his old and sick master in form of an operation.
He is portrayed in a rather weak and horribly faceless way by actor Kaneshiro Takeshi who is one of the reasons why this movie doesn't work as well as it could have been.Meanwhile, the fictional city is haunted by a smart thief who seems to have twenty different faces or masks and is therefor called K-20.
The character seems to be a mixture of Robin Hood who mostly steals from the rich, Spider-Man thanks to his great acrobatic and flying skills and of the Shadow because of his appearance.
From that point of view, the movie picks the best influences from famous American superheroes which is not very original.This thief comes to meet the poor circus acrobat and gives him a lot of money to take a couple of pictures of the engagement ceremony of the intelligent but cold-hearted detective Akechi Kogoro who has become a local celebrity with the charming, vivid and unconventional Hashiba Yoko.
These two characters are well portrayed by the stylish and authentic Nakamura Toro and the charming and beautiful Matsu Takako.The whole thing turns out to be a trap as the circus acrobat gets caught during the event and is now mistaken for the thief with the mask.
It's also sad that the thieves that liberated the circus acrobat are promisingly introduced but never seem to appear again in the entire movie.Endo Heikichi meets K-20 again when the criminal chases the young fiancée Hashiba Yoko through the nocturnal streets of Teito.
The thief of shadows though always seems to be faster and smarter during this fast paced competition that builds up some atmosphere and tension but unfortunately leads to a quite stereotypical ending that could have been taken from any Hollywood assembly-line product.In the end, the visual parts and the steam punk elements of the movie are quite addicting.
This feature builds up some good atmosphere towards the second half that leads to a fast paced competition between the good and the bad.On the other side, the story of this movie is not quite original and somewhat predictable at some point even if there is a little twist in the end.
The acting of the main actors is rather poor and leads to some lengths.After all, the movie is worth a watch if you like steam punk elements or if you collect all possible superhero movies in the world but it can't be counted as a highlight of its genre.
It's long and quite laborious, with not much pay-off.Set in a mid-20th century Japan where WWII never happened and where social classes are not allowed to inter-marry, K-20 is a thief and a master of disguise (think of the Mission: Impossible with the rubber masks) who steals inventions and artifacts (though we never actually see much of this happening).
At 137 minutes I've seen film almost half it's length with more more action.
Typical Japanese sci-fi action adventure with good story.
The only one I thought interesting was the way the faces/mask are removed.The acting was as good as Japanese movies get.
Only regret is that Matsu Takako didn't get enough screen time for being one of the pivotal characters.I found myself comparing this movie to V for Vendetta.
In a world where the second world war never happened, class structure is rigidly enforced, Nikola Telsa wins the Nobel Prize and there are dirigibles, gyro-copters and the like, a villain called K-20 (because he has at least 20 different faces) is going around stealing art treasures from the rich.
Things get complicated when circus performer Heikichi Endo is mistaken for K20 by the police when the job of photographing the engagement ceremony of Akechi to his fiancé the Duchess Yoko Hashiba, goes horribly wrong.
It soon becomes clear that K-20 has set up Heikichi, and its left to the young circus performer to find away to break free and clear his name.I have described this as the superhero (Batman like) movie that I have been waiting for but never knew I was waiting for it.
Set in a steam punkish world like our own but different, this is a film that was free to go and do what it wanted.
Its a film that takes all the cool things from the pulp fiction of the 1930's and 40's mixes them with the iconic superhero material from today and serves it up into a mixture thats familiar but wonderfully new.
Yes you've seen it before, there are shots that are cribbed from a variety of sources (the Batman movies) but they are the right shots to use.
The plot will play out in ways best described as the sort of thing you can guess, but at the same time thats not right.
Thank god no one was around me in the theater as I repeatedly said "YES!" to myself as the film hit every point exactly as it should.I loved the characters.Takeshi Kaneshiro as Heikichi Endo is right on target.He is the hero we'd all like to be.
Watchmen has quite a few stories to tell, which it does using current style of movie-making, with deft editing and temporal scrambles, among other things.
K20 has a relatively simple storyline (but with good suspense and twists) and employs the traditional way taking its good time in developing plots and characters.
The main plot follows the fugitive Endo's quest in trying to clear is own name so that he can return to the circle that is like family to him.I wouldn't indulge in the sub-plot and details but would just say that this movie, which tells a human story, is rich in contents, with both comedy and poignancy (although the tone is generally light).
Takako Matsu ("April story", "Hidden blade") brings a delightful touch to her character, taking her own good time in exploring its many possibilities.
I went to this show with a neutral opinion, having not been influenced by any prior knowledge nor reviews from the press or the Internet.And boy, was I sorely disappointed.***SPOILERS AHEAD*** While this movie was made with a narrative style used commonly in Japanese anime/manga, such narrative coupled with real actors in a real life setting on film had the awkward consequence of making it ridiculous and absurd at times.Several instances of comic relief were inserted into this film in attempts to lighten up the mood.