Atomic Robot News: Sky High (2003)(Movie)

Sky High (2003)(Movie)

It starts in present-day Tokyo. A serial murderer is on the loose who is baffling the cops with his MO -- he tears an internal organ out of young women and then suspends his victims in dramatic poses in big open spaces. (Is Kitamura referencing "Silence of the Lambs" here? I think so.) A hot-blooded detective, Kanzaki (Shosuke Tanihara), becomes determined to crack the case -- so much so that he loses track of time and sleeps at his desk, the wall behind him covered with grisly photos of the victims.

Then a colleague wakes him up and reminds him that today is his wedding. Kanzaki tears off to the church, arriving just in time to save his bride, the trusting, tender-hearted Mina (Yumiko Shaku), from an emotional meltdown.

Enough to say that, instead of glorying in this day of days, Mina ends up dead -- the killer's fourth victim. Cut to the dark, smoky, antechamber of the Other World, where an imperious young woman in black leather awaits Mina's soul. Called only Izuko (Eihi Shiina), she is the guardian of the huge, gray-metal Urami no Mon (Gate of Revenge). She gives Mina three choices: 1) Accept death and go to heaven; 2) Reject it and wander the world as a ghost; 3) Kill one person and go to hell. Unable to make up her mind and consumed with longing, Mina returns to the world of the living.

There she finds her fiance, distraught after being taken off the case -- but soon out for revenge. But if he kills the killer, Mina knows, he will go to hell. Somehow she has to save him. Then she remembers her own murder -- and a certain Kudo (Takao Osawa), and his slinky, merciless assistant. Kudo, we learn, is a geneticist with an unholy ambition and psychic powers. When he sees Mina in his lab, he mocks her -- nothing, certainly not a wimpy ghost, is about to stand in his way. Somehow Mina must stop him, before he opens the gates of hell . . .

Sky High (2003)

Toei Co. Ltd.

Directed By: Ryuhei Kitamura & Norio Tsuruta

Written By: Tsutomu Takahashi

Cast:

Yumiko Shaku as Mina / Izuko

Takao Osawa as Kudo

Shosuke Tanihara as Kanzaki

Yuka Itaya

Aya Okamoto

Masato Sakai

Eihi Shiina as Izuko