SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Jan Strydom I bought K-20 without knowing it was a Japanese movie but it didn't keep me from watching it since I already own a few Japanese movies. 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.

kluseba "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. In the fictional capital Teito, the viewer can observe zeppelins and similar flying objects as well as adventurous machines that work with alternate forms of steam or electricity. These science-fiction gimmicks are what make this movie truly imaginative and fantastic. 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. He gets imprisoned and tortured but suddenly gets some help from a gang of local thieves who liberate him in a quite original way. The acrobat is not very thankful and rather looks for isolation and overtly despises the thieves that saved him. He later realizes that he can flee and must become a smart thief as K-20 is to clear his name and find out about the true criminal intentions of the master thief. This profound change of mind is not very well portrayed in the movie and definitely lacks of passion. Instead of focusing on this important turning point, the film wastes a lot of time with more or less important and gripping dialogues. 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. It seems that the young woman's grandfather had developed a futuristic Tesla machine that could be used as a weapon of mass destruction. The young acrobat, the energizing fiancée and her fiancé and detective try to solve the puzzle to find and destroy the mysterious weapon hidden by the deceased grandfather before K-20 can get his hands on the dangerous machine. 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. The gang of thieves, the circus crew as well as the charming fiancée are positive elements of this movie. 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 main villain is a copy of many Hollywood figures and can't convince. 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. Anybody else should skip this one and go for the original superhero movies from Hollywood.

8thSin American remakes of Asian movies are becoming common nowadays... well, take this Hollywood! "Japanese Batman-meets-Spiderman" pretty much describes this movie. 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 cast is all-star, and not only that, they fit their part very well.One thing I really have to praise about this movie is the CG. 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.

DICK STEEL There's no stopping Takeshi Kaneshiro in charming the socks off everyone, especially since new fans were won over by his heartfelt performance as the Grim Reaper in Accuracy of Death last year, and following that with his Zhuge Liang in Red Cliff. 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. It's set after WWII which never happened since Japan signed a peace treaty with the US and the UK, and hence what we have is some strangely futuristic backdrop, and some peculiar background on everyone being conditioned for pre-determined jobs and not having the ability to switch careers. 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. And if Bat-fans would see some similarities here, I'd say his character's more like Dick Grayson and with putting his abilities to fighting crime, it's almost exactly how a Nightwing would behave. 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. Breaking out of prison thanks to a merry bunch of thieves whom he soon allies himself with, Heikichi makes it his quest to flush out K-20 and to clear his name, with the help of a nifty grappling hook and rope device.Not being sexist here, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that K-20 is directed by a female - Shimako Sato, who also adapted the screenplay from a novel by So Kitamura. 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. K-20 wants it to rule the world, and it's up to our heroes to crack the mystery as to where the device is, and to stop the villain from achieving his goal. 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.