OH. MY. GOD. WOW.

The collective discipline.
Instead of: “everyone screaming, selfish panic, random betrayal”,
the movie goes: “professionals doing their jobs with terrifying competence.”

It's sooo satisfying to watch. The crew trusts the engineers. The engineers trust the control center. The passengers mostly follow instructions. The government coordinates instead of collapsing into chaos.

Kasagi, Takaichi, and Matsumoto, thank you for never give up. Literally gave me chills.

OH. MY. GOD. WOW.

The collective discipline.
Instead of: “everyone screaming, selfish panic, random betrayal”,
the movie goes: “professionals doing their jobs with terrifying competence.”

It's sooo satisfying to watch. The crew trusts the engineers. The engineers trust the control center. The passengers mostly follow instructions. The government coordinates instead of collapsing into chaos.

Kasagi, Takaichi, and Matsumoto, thank you for never give up. Literally gave me chills.

Imagine they tried to pull this off on NJ Transit? There'd be no hope.

Now that the first thing that came to mind it out of the way. My thoughts on this are unfortunately quite mixed. Higuchi does a solid job weaving together a tokusatsu spectacle about collective action and although not as frenetic and stylish as his last few outings, the film is very handsomely shot and the first 2 thirds are quite well paced. I thought the way the film handled it's legacy sequel elements were okay, the footage from the 1975 version were a welcome sight and the way the context from that film is integrated varied from interesting to well... this is where I get into where the film left me wanting more. The first film was largely a crime thriller that gave us a band of characters that felt thoroughly explored and were engaging to follow in the whole cat-and-mouse chase. This film decides to take the criminal element and tie it directly to the characters, both on screen and retroactive inclusions, of the first film. It makes the terror aspect lose all realism and really grinds the film to a halt. The politics here are also quite messy and I think in the time between the last film and this one, there's a lot of nuance that didnt survive to the modern Japanese film industry. So in the end, I feel left with a very entertaining action film from a talented director that I will probably have no interest in revisiting over its predecessor which clocks in like 20 minutes longer while feeling 20 minutes shorter.

Imagine they tried to pull this off on NJ Transit? There'd be no hope.

Now that the first thing that came to mind it out of the way. My thoughts on this are unfortunately quite mixed. Higuchi does a solid job weaving together a tokusatsu spectacle about collective action and although not as frenetic and stylish as his last few outings, the film is very handsomely shot and the first 2 thirds are quite well paced. I thought the way the film handled it's legacy sequel elements were okay, the footage from the 1975 version were a welcome sight and the way the context from that film is integrated varied from interesting to well... this is where I get into where the film left me wanting more. The first film was largely a crime thriller that gave us a band of characters that felt thoroughly explored and were engaging to follow in the whole cat-and-mouse chase. This film decides to take the criminal element and tie it directly to the characters, both on screen and retroactive inclusions, of the first film. It makes the terror aspect lose all realism and really grinds the film to a halt. The politics here are also quite messy and I think in the time between the last film and this one, there's a lot of nuance that didnt survive to the modern Japanese film industry. So in the end, I feel left with a very entertaining action film from a talented director that I will probably have no interest in revisiting over its predecessor which clocks in like 20 minutes longer while feeling 20 minutes shorter.

Imagine they tried to pull this off on NJ Transit? There'd be no hope.

Now that the first thing that came to mind it out of the way. My thoughts on this are unfortunately quite mixed. Higuchi does a solid job weaving together a tokusatsu spectacle about collective action and although not as frenetic and stylish as his last few outings, the film is very handsomely shot and the first 2 thirds are quite well paced. I thought the way the film handled it's legacy sequel elements were okay, the footage from the 1975 version were a welcome sight and the way the context from that film is integrated varied from interesting to well... this is where I get into where the film left me wanting more. The first film was largely a crime thriller that gave us a band of characters that felt thoroughly explored and were engaging to follow in the whole cat-and-mouse chase. This film decides to take the criminal element and tie it directly to the characters, both on screen and retroactive inclusions, of the first film. It makes the terror aspect lose all realism and really grinds the film to a halt. The politics here are also quite messy and I think in the time between the last film and this one, there's a lot of nuance that didnt survive to the modern Japanese film industry. So in the end, I feel left with a very entertaining action film from a talented director that I will probably have no interest in revisiting over its predecessor which clocks in like 20 minutes longer while feeling 20 minutes shorter.

Imagine they tried to pull this off on NJ Transit? There'd be no hope.

Now that the first thing that came to mind it out of the way. My thoughts on this are unfortunately quite mixed. Higuchi does a solid job weaving together a tokusatsu spectacle about collective action and although not as frenetic and stylish as his last few outings, the film is very handsomely shot and the first 2 thirds are quite well paced. I thought the way the film handled it's legacy sequel elements were okay, the footage from the 1975 version were a welcome sight and the way the context from that film is integrated varied from interesting to well... this is where I get into where the film left me wanting more. The first film was largely a crime thriller that gave us a band of characters that felt thoroughly explored and were engaging to follow in the whole cat-and-mouse chase. This film decides to take the criminal element and tie it directly to the characters, both on screen and retroactive inclusions, of the first film. It makes the terror aspect lose all realism and really grinds the film to a halt. The politics here are also quite messy and I think in the time between the last film and this one, there's a lot of nuance that didnt survive to the modern Japanese film industry. So in the end, I feel left with a very entertaining action film from a talented director that I will probably have no interest in revisiting over its predecessor which clocks in like 20 minutes longer while feeling 20 minutes shorter.

Imagine they tried to pull this off on NJ Transit? There'd be no hope.

Now that the first thing that came to mind it out of the way. My thoughts on this are unfortunately quite mixed. Higuchi does a solid job weaving together a tokusatsu spectacle about collective action and although not as frenetic and stylish as his last few outings, the film is very handsomely shot and the first 2 thirds are quite well paced. I thought the way the film handled it's legacy sequel elements were okay, the footage from the 1975 version were a welcome sight and the way the context from that film is integrated varied from interesting to well... this is where I get into where the film left me wanting more. The first film was largely a crime thriller that gave us a band of characters that felt thoroughly explored and were engaging to follow in the whole cat-and-mouse chase. This film decides to take the criminal element and tie it directly to the characters, both on screen and retroactive inclusions, of the first film. It makes the terror aspect lose all realism and really grinds the film to a halt. The politics here are also quite messy and I think in the time between the last film and this one, there's a lot of nuance that didnt survive to the modern Japanese film industry. So in the end, I feel left with a very entertaining action film from a talented director that I will probably have no interest in revisiting over its predecessor which clocks in like 20 minutes longer while feeling 20 minutes shorter.

Imagine they tried to pull this off on NJ Transit? There'd be no hope.

Now that the first thing that came to mind it out of the way. My thoughts on this are unfortunately quite mixed. Higuchi does a solid job weaving together a tokusatsu spectacle about collective action and although not as frenetic and stylish as his last few outings, the film is very handsomely shot and the first 2 thirds are quite well paced. I thought the way the film handled it's legacy sequel elements were okay, the footage from the 1975 version were a welcome sight and the way the context from that film is integrated varied from interesting to well... this is where I get into where the film left me wanting more. The first film was largely a crime thriller that gave us a band of characters that felt thoroughly explored and were engaging to follow in the whole cat-and-mouse chase. This film decides to take the criminal element and tie it directly to the characters, both on screen and retroactive inclusions, of the first film. It makes the terror aspect lose all realism and really grinds the film to a halt. The politics here are also quite messy and I think in the time between the last film and this one, there's a lot of nuance that didnt survive to the modern Japanese film industry. So in the end, I feel left with a very entertaining action film from a talented director that I will probably have no interest in revisiting over its predecessor which clocks in like 20 minutes longer while feeling 20 minutes shorter.

Imagine they tried to pull this off on NJ Transit? There'd be no hope.

Now that the first thing that came to mind it out of the way. My thoughts on this are unfortunately quite mixed. Higuchi does a solid job weaving together a tokusatsu spectacle about collective action and although not as frenetic and stylish as his last few outings, the film is very handsomely shot and the first 2 thirds are quite well paced. I thought the way the film handled it's legacy sequel elements were okay, the footage from the 1975 version were a welcome sight and the way the context from that film is integrated varied from interesting to well... this is where I get into where the film left me wanting more. The first film was largely a crime thriller that gave us a band of characters that felt thoroughly explored and were engaging to follow in the whole cat-and-mouse chase. This film decides to take the criminal element and tie it directly to the characters, both on screen and retroactive inclusions, of the first film. It makes the terror aspect lose all realism and really grinds the film to a halt. The politics here are also quite messy and I think in the time between the last film and this one, there's a lot of nuance that didnt survive to the modern Japanese film industry. So in the end, I feel left with a very entertaining action film from a talented director that I will probably have no interest in revisiting over its predecessor which clocks in like 20 minutes longer while feeling 20 minutes shorter.

Imagine they tried to pull this off on NJ Transit? There'd be no hope.

Now that the first thing that came to mind it out of the way. My thoughts on this are unfortunately quite mixed. Higuchi does a solid job weaving together a tokusatsu spectacle about collective action and although not as frenetic and stylish as his last few outings, the film is very handsomely shot and the first 2 thirds are quite well paced. I thought the way the film handled it's legacy sequel elements were okay, the footage from the 1975 version were a welcome sight and the way the context from that film is integrated varied from interesting to well... this is where I get into where the film left me wanting more. The first film was largely a crime thriller that gave us a band of characters that felt thoroughly explored and were engaging to follow in the whole cat-and-mouse chase. This film decides to take the criminal element and tie it directly to the characters, both on screen and retroactive inclusions, of the first film. It makes the terror aspect lose all realism and really grinds the film to a halt. The politics here are also quite messy and I think in the time between the last film and this one, there's a lot of nuance that didnt survive to the modern Japanese film industry. So in the end, I feel left with a very entertaining action film from a talented director that I will probably have no interest in revisiting over its predecessor which clocks in like 20 minutes longer while feeling 20 minutes shorter.