If you’re like me and know who The Back Horn is, it’s likely because you’ve seen Kaz I Kiriya’s 2004 banger, Casshern, which takes its cues from the hit classic Tatsunoko Production IP about a dead soldier revived to become a savior against an army of Neo-Sapiens, formed from a pool of Neo-cells from ethno-cleansed Eurasians when a lightning bolt strikes a lab.
I’m not at all familiar with the “Casshan” anime or its subsequent iterations, so Kiriya’s Casshern is my only exposure to it. I was especially fond of the colors and contours, and glimmering cinematography that give the film its spirited fantastical look. Its anti-war themes are also some of the strongest in resonance as we watch our hero battle the Neo-Sapiens’ leader and his robot army – one in a series of battles in which both our hero and villain are brought full circle to the film’s cataclysic end, bookended by Kiriya’s use of ebullient imagery and spiritual messaging.
Indeed, and particularly in these times, Casshern stands as one of the most important films of my generation, even for fans who love sci-fi, Japanese anime and inspired action seuqences. Some of the battle scenes in this movie are certainly worth the money we paid for to see this movie too. I bought a Korean-imported version of this film on DVD from a local bookstore many years ago (it was one of the longer cuts compared to the one available via U.S. distributor Dreamworks at the time) and ahead of any hopes there might have been for a “Dragon Ball Z” adaptation of any kind, what I saw in Casshern emboldened my hopes even more to see Kiriya at the helm for such a film.
Indeed though, he’s not in the game any more last I checked. He directed a total of four films, finishing out his film career with 2023’s From The End Of The World, which I enjoyed to say the least. Meanwhile, Kiriya’s debut after a spell of music videos for recording artist Utada Hikaru, stands to be one of the most impactful sci-fi action thrillers of the early 2000s, a turning point for the overall viability of Asian cinema and its cultural impact on global audiences.
Speaking of Utada, they can also be found on the soundtrack of this amazing movie with the song, “Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro” encapsulating the film’s moving closing credits. The battles are a stunner to watch in this movie, barring some choice editing issues at times, but the score to this movie completely owns.
