Before there was no "Room Game" genre such as the "Chainsaw Horror" series, "Alice in the Land of the Dead" and "Squid Games", the most topical hit movie was Canada's "Alien Killing Squad", and three were made at once.
Although the standard of the second and third films is not as good as the first, it still creates a low-budget classic trilogy, which can be regarded as the ancestor of the "Chamber of Secrets" movies in recent years.
This kind of "chamber game" theme of the film is not uncommon, but also more and more tricky, and even created a strange world view.
Although Japanese movies, TV series and manga are very good at writing the theme of "Chamber of Secrets", how attractive can this story be to remake "Alien Dimension Killing" at this time?
The general story of the Japanese adaptation of "Alien Killing Array", like the first episode of the 97 version, is a group of people with no memory, solving mysteries in an endless cube chamber to find a way out.
The film is a sincere adaptation, adding a lot of backstory to the characters, and the trap crisis is also in line with the progress of the times and adds more crazy designs than the original.
The crisis of several mistakes in the trap is indeed nerve-breathing, and the interpretation of the opposing body is different from the original, at least not a reduction of the paper.
In fact, it is also lost in the "smart but clever mistakes", the whole movie is too much adaptation, but also added a typical Japanese design, enriched the character background story, added a variety of social issues, so that the snake added to the foot, resulting in the middle and back section is extremely lengthy.
A number of characters, like the "secondary two diseases", are very contrary to the sudden reversal of human nature in the original work.
In order to establish a more complete worldview on the cube, the new story adds a dispensable character in an attempt to lay the groundwork for the next episode.
Several strangers wake up to find themselves trapped in chambers of secrets, surrounded by a door that leads to the next chamber, but these chambers not only have no end, but also hide terror machines inside, which can touch the mechanism of death at any time.
These strangers had nothing in common with each other, and they couldn't remember why they had come here, and they had to rely on each other's wisdom to work together to crack the clues left by the chamber and find the exit. Endless puzzles gradually collapse everyone, and the dark side of human nature hidden in the heart is gradually revealed...
01. The movie is not simply restored according to the gourd painting scoop, but is carefully adapted
It is not an exaggeration to say that "Alien Dimension Killing Array" is the ancestor of this kind of chamber game theme.
There are endless "game-playing" and terrifying traps, and human nature driven crazy in this extreme situation.
In addition, the last two episodes deal with the common conspiracies of this genre, which sets the standard for the "Chamber of Secrets Game" genre.
The first episode of "Alien Dimension Killing" is good in an extremely simple scene, and it is not like the genre in recent years to design a variety of "games", simple and simple can already create a super pressure and weird feeling, naturally can make the movie popular.
This film chose this framework to extend again, after more than 20 years, of course, can no longer show the first film's five-cent stunts, the new work even if it does not have the "Alien Dimension Killing Squad 2" to reverse the time dimension, or create more traps.
How the crowd cracked, the super tension created in the moment of life and death, whether it is a "fan" or a "sound effect", will show the sudden fear of unknown death to the fullest, and the several traps in the first half of the paragraph can indeed make people's hearts beat faster, as if they are immersed.
The film adds new elements to the original, this "death cube" is no longer a simple tone, in the colorful, often trigger more death crises, the cube in addition to killing there are endless variables, all make the film more vivid than the original design.
The film also deepens the backstory for some of the characters, adding a human side, not just a group of strangers who have never met before walking around.
All this is enough to show that the film is still a sincere adaptation, not just to find a reason to restore "One Shot after another" of "Xeno-Dimensional Killing Array".
02. The film strives to create a more complete worldview of "Alien Killing Array"
If you have a heart to adapt, you may not be successful, and there will be a problem of low eyesight, which is exactly the case with this movie.
The story deepens the background for the characters of the original work, and the protagonist has a long background, even out of the memory fragment of the cubic chamber, from time to time flashback to flashback the protagonist's regrets, spending a lot of space to let the audience know that he is a "person with a story".
However, his story has nothing to do with the main plot - at least for the time being, spending most of the day to lay out, which will only make the plot drag longer and longer, and more withdraw from the tight tension of the main line, and increase the boredom in the middle section.
A number of characters other than the protagonist also try to arrange a background story for them, but "say more wrong", lay out too much but do not explain the plot, and a character suddenly "rampage" is also too abrupt.
A large number of unreasonable branches appear, which is completely like the attack of a group of characters "Secondary Two Disease", but it is not as simple as the original work and can stimulate the audience's imagination.
This may be a common way in Japanese movies, always having to arrange background fillers for a group of characters, but unfortunately their backgrounds have nothing to do with the main line, and too many branches are just a snake to add to the snake.
In addition to a backstory, they also have a clear established personality, who lives and who dies will suddenly "run away", the opening few minutes can be guessed, deepening the character design but still let them flow in the typical layout, it is a failure.
The "tail retention" of the movie is quite obvious, understanding that even if the original work takes two more episodes to explain the ins and outs of the whole thing, this way of leaving the tail is also a snake.
There is no doubt that the adaptation of the film is both intentional and willing to spend effort, not to be a simple "remake", but the story tries to become another worldview and create more new ways to play, but it is only in the process of constantly secretly laying out, even the most basic explanation is not good.
When I thought that a certain character was almost "ruined", it was a big reversal at the last minute, and the seemingly "exciting" design only added a big question mark to all the poorly explained bridges.
Because of this role, the film seems to trigger many accidents and the dark side of human nature, but this has no effect on the whole movie.
Then almost forgot that it existed, and did not reappear until the last minute, and its purpose was to save it for the second part, which gave the impression that the film was made as a TV series, and everything did not need to be explained to the next episode.
Although the first episode of "Alien Dimension Killing" does not have a complete ending explanation, at least there is an open-ended ending full of imagination, and it can also end a story, unlike this movie.
03. The film was remade after more than 20 years, and the design of the trap was more painstaking, and the action scenes that could avoid the heavy and light were still like limited funds
The traps of the movie are more diverse than the first episode of "Alien Killing Array", and even a little bit of the taste of "Alien Killing Array 2", and the design of several traps is very thoughtful, which can also create a tension effect.
However, the film obviously had this idea, but did not make it larger and more compact.
The death crisis may strike in an instant, which can indeed create a thrill for the audience, and the protagonist's solution is also very fast, making the crisis difficult to maintain and wasting a variety of designs.
In the end, when will these traps be triggered, and when will they be okay, it seems that the movie has not been explained for most of the day, is it a mysterious character control, or the plot needs, when necessary, the protagonist must explain everything before triggering?
Therefore, this film can be said to be a work of "weak heart", and the creative team has a lot of heart to adapt a classic work, and found the creators of the original "Alien Dimension Killing Array" to participate.
Not only is it a simple meaningless remake, but it also deepens the worldview of the "cube", enriches the backstory of the characters, and the design of the trap is more thrilling than the original.
Unfortunately, all of this is just "heart", "powerless" in execution, not only the tense plot is short-lived, the overly long character background story, but also feels that it is superfluous, resulting in a lot of stuffiness in the middle section.
It must be admitted that the film has a certain creativity in the adaptation, it is not known whether there is a problem with the funds or the execution of the team, everything is not enough, and it is left to decompose next time, even if there is a cast of Sugata Shoki, Okada Shosei, Saito Ko, Watanabe Apricot and so on.