Review of the moive Gantz

Disclaimer: I have never read the manga or seen the Anime. This review is solely on the moive itself & my own opinion(s). No sploilers follow.

Note half of the action senes / characters seen here are Not present in part one

First let me provide links for you to familiarize yourself with the genre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantz and http://asianmediawiki.com/GANTZ_(2011-Japan-Live_Action)

Review: It is a stand alone moive based on the manga introducing the story from the very beginning with the two main characters & supporting cast. It is worth noting for an American audience that the Japanese model of flim making & Hollywoods idea of an Action film are totaly two different things. The typical American model is bogus stunts, guns, violence, sex & special effects with a simply story not much better then one from a porno. The Japanese model is just the opposite with the focus on the story, setting & character method acting with the actual "action" in brief segments simular to thier horror films.

Therefore if you are new to Japanese films you will find this movie boring & could of been shortened to a mere hour. The guy sitting in front of me fell asleep for ten minutes & I could hear him snoring. Being basicly a drama with bits of action. However if you are use to this format especialy from Anime then this film will be what you would expect. Though I feel they could of added a sustained action sene exploiting the technology to make it more entertaining. I could hear from the audience around me were starting to get into the final climax, but even it was broken up with dramatic pauses.

Overall I liked the moive though even I found it slow & needed more action. The story & acting are great though as expected with two male leads the women were just there to be there. It would of been nice to of seen the actress Natsuna Watanabe play an equal role instead of just exploiting her body. Also instead of the original Japanese dialogue I found it was dubbed, boo!. Guess they feel Americans are to lazy to read & would hurt ticket sales. There is a squeal coming soon so if you liked the first one, now that "story line wise" our characters should be experienced hunter/killers, I'm sure it'll be better then the first.