Generally speaking, just seeing a "big name" in the staff list of an anime is enough to arouse my interest.
The animation that I want to recommend to you today is only 48 minutes long, but it brings together the names of four masters.
The co-conspirator was Mori Oshii, the director of two theatrical versions of Ghost in the Shell, and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, which was nominated for Best Animated Film Director at the 44th Annie Awards and nominated for the 57th Cannes Palme d'Or.
The writer is Kenji Kamiyama, my favorite Ghost in the Shell SAC TV animation supervisor, a man who never let me down.
The names of the other two may not be particularly familiar to you: Hiroyuki Kitakubo, the supervisor of Hiroyuki Kitakuro, and the picture design of Emi-ku.
They are the original staff of jojo's adventure 3: Stardust Gladiator OVA, an old version of JOJO from the 90s, which has made some degree of adaptation of the original manga.
But their adaptation made me, the JO chef, call out to the insider, and finally the explosion stage effect of "DIO smashed down the tanker truck, and Shotaro stepped out of the flames" was exactly the handiwork of these two.
This animation that makes me laugh just by looking at the staff list is—
The Last Vampire
The film was released using the most advanced "HD24P" digital technology at the time, which was the first time this technology was used in a Japanese film or television production, so the 48-minute theatrical short film caused a big sensation at the beginning of its release.
At the same time, it won the 2001 Media Art Festival Animation Awards of the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan and the Best Feature Award at the 2002 Stuttgart International Animation Film Festival.
If you have seen the previous episode of the old OVA recommendation of "JOJO", you should remember my praise for the "stage effect" of the cooperation between Hiroyuki Kitakubo and Emi hisa.
In The Last Vampire, their collaboration still didn't disappoint me.
I have to say that the works of these two 90s animators really reveal a sense of romanticism of fine painting.
The story stage of "The Last Vampire" is in Japan after World War II, the high-speed soaring economy, the shadow of the US military garrison, and the two contradictory forces fighting in this island country.
The economic take-off built tall buildings on this post-war wasteland, kicking off the prelude to modernization.
But the U.S. military bases and the swaggering Americans are like a conspicuous scar, they can only bow their heads and bend down to endure, even the appearance of prosperity, like the handouts of this group of colonists.
The main story revolves around the vampire hunter Night, under the command of two U.S. military agents, hunting vampires.
Most of the plot of the whole film takes place in the night, and even if there is an occasional daytime plot, the screen is like a layer of shadows, which sets the gloomy tone of the animation.
The dark main tone is both in line with the usual aesthetic of vampire works and like the shadow of the garrison that hangs over the land.
Since it is a work with vampire hunters as the protagonist, hunting vampires is of course a major attraction. In this game, the four hunts in the middle of the night, the stage effect is full.
The first two hunts are not so much action movies as thrillers. The night drew his knife and hacked the other person to death, just for a moment.
Kung Fu is not in the fight scene, but in the atmosphere creation before the knife is made in the night.
The first hunt was on the late subway, with the monotonous afterglow of the train colliding with the rails, the tragic white lights, and the carriages of only two people left.
At a glance, the other passenger showed a look of fear and hurried to run to another carriage.
But Xiao Ye's knife was faster, and only in the instant when the light dimmed, the sharp blade cut him off, and the blood spread like a curtain.
The second hunting stage was in the high school of the garrison base, and there was a "suicide" incident among the students of this high school.
The U.S. agents got the news that the vampire was disguised as a student and planted the night in.
A Japanese person entering the high school, which was almost entirely of American students, was naturally ignored, and only two girls in the class were slightly interested in her, and she only rejected them with a "leave me alone".
Through the residual smell of blood on the floor, Xiao Ye found the vampire's "dining room", the infirmary, and even recreated the scene of their eating in his mind.
However, there are still songs and dances outside the door, and students are busy preparing for the Halloween party in the evening.
It is precisely in order to let the students forget these terrible things that the school is determined to hold the Halloween party normally.
The two girls who took the initiative to greet her were the vampires lurking in the school.
Xiao Yue heard them carrying their illness to the infirmary before the party, and locked them up.
There were only the two of them and the school doctor in the infirmary, and the thick school doctor turned his back on them, and when he rummaged through the medicine cabinet for medicine, the two of them were communicating with each other in a voice that ordinary people could not hear.
Seeing that the one lying on the bed pretending to be sick had already half sat up, and the bloody feast was about to begin, Xiao Yue suddenly pushed the door and broke in, directly killing her on the hospital bed.
Another vampire was slashed in the arm by her, but her knife reached its limit and broke in two.
The kind and honest school doctor didn't know what was happening, but felt that the madwoman in front of her had killed her students with a knife and wanted her to forget everything.
Until she slowly looked at the hospital bed, which was not a student, but a fierce monster.
If the first two hunts are thrillers that win by atmosphere, then the last two hunts are gorgeous action movies.
She had thought of finding a weapon in the U.S. military warehouse, and killing a vampire would require a lot of bleeding at once, so the gun had little effect.
I thought that there should be a mountain knife in this warehouse, but only a sapper shovel was found.
Not only that, but the vampire locked the door and trapped her in it. To make matters worse, the school doctor picked up a gun and fired indiscriminately, bursting the fuel tank of the military vehicle.
I have to say that Enomi really likes the scene of the flames burning, whether it is the final battle of the old OVA in "JOJO" or "The Last Vampire".
Flames spread in the closed warehouse, and Xiao Ye was almost forced into a desperate situation because of the weapons she did not have, and the school doctor with her raised a gun to commit suicide in despair.
Nightshade is suppressed by the vampire death, and she angrily shouts to the school doctor not to give up and let her go and knock on the door with her car.
The school doctor woke up like a dream, crawled to the ground with a rolling belt to drive, and the agent who supported her had already brought the knife to the door.
The gate opened, the heat gushed out along with the flames, and the night ran in the direction of the gate, and the vampire pounced on her back with its teeth and claws.
She grabbed the knife thrown by the agent, and with a beautiful slash, the vampire's burly body froze in a twisted position, dark red blood spurting out in front of the bright yellow flames.
The last hunt is a bit of a classic Hollywood car chase action scene.
The vampire had already spread its wings and flew toward the U.S. military transport plane that was about to take off, and the agents chased after the car in the back, and the night fixed his injured hand to the car with a hand-worn scarf.
At the moment when the two sides passed by, Xiao Ye swung his knife hard, and the vampire who almost managed to grab the transport plane fell with a wail and fell, throwing a pool of blood on the runway.
If the old duo of Hiroyuki Kitakubo and Enomi has brought us the perfect picture effect, then the pair of Oshii Mori and Kenji Kamiyama injected soul into this animated film.
This animated film is only 48 minutes long, and the first thing it needs to do is to condense.
The entire anime is almost devoid of any set-up commentary, and is naturally revealed by the language of the characters and the development of the plot.
In the mouths of American agents, vampires are called "Pterodactyls", which is very much in line with their biological characteristics, and they call the night "protosthesis".
When She heard "Jesus" and saw the cross, she became angry, and after killing the last vampire, she even gave her own blood to it to relieve its dying pain.
So, when the animation reveals her vampire identity at the end, the audience will only take it for granted.
The portrayal of the US garrison is also a small and large technique.
The woman who sold herself near the garrison base committed suicide, and others asked her mother, Sang, if she had committed suicide because of a strange disease.
Mother Sang said leisurely -
"If it's just people who are going to commit suicide because they get sick, they won't be in the business of the U.S. military."
Even the "non-selling" Japanese knife that Xiao Yue looked at on the street played a role in the back.
After her knife broke, the first thing she thought of was to get this "non-sale product", and the audience, like her, thought it was a sword.
As a result, she slashed down with a knife, and the blade was bent, which was a model knife at all!
For this pair of masters and apprentices, telling a good story is of course a pursuit, and more importantly, it is to express themselves to the audience.
Oshii Mori does not say, known as the original smasher, in order to self-expression can be dismantled into pieces of the man.
Kenji Kamiyama's "Ghost in the Shell SAC" and "East of Eden" also have a strong social science flavor.
"The Last Vampire" ostensibly tells the story of a vampire hunter, but in fact, these 48 minutes are watched, and the words "American Colony" are written in the cracks of each frame.
In the small talk between Mother San and others, these people hate the tyranny of the US military while relying on this military base to make a living.
As for the "suicide" selling woman, we don't know in the end whether she committed suicide because she was devastated by American soldiers, or whether she died of her mother, Sang, a vampire.
Or maybe there's no difference between the two.
And after Mama Sang transformed into a vampire, why she pounced on the TRANSPORT aircraft of the US army like a moth to the fire, we have no way of knowing.
Night first killed the social animal in the subway, but after death, she did not appear like the vampire in the school.
She followed the instructions of the two agents and killed him, but was he a vampire?
The black agent insisted that it was a human, but the white agent disagreed, and did not even want to look at the corpse.
In the end, the only "outsider" school doctor in the whole film returns to daily life, and everything before seems to be a nightmare for her.
The shadow of the vampire that hung near the U.S. military base dissipated, but U.S. bombers also took off from the base.
It will fly to the battlefield of the Vietnam War, where it will cast a thousand times the shadow of death.
Vampires usually imitate humans, and when they prey, they will show their true faces, grow sharp teeth, and open their broad wings.
Those who do whatever they want in other people's lands, who want to vent their animalistic and destructive desires, may be only one pair of fangs and a pair of wings compared to vampires.
Both Oshii Mori and Kenji Kamiyama have experienced anti-Japan security treaty demonstrations, and Oshii Mori has even personally participated, and both of them are among the few leftists in the industry and even in Japan.
In today's increasingly popular conservative right, in today's deconstructivism that entertains to the death, it may be difficult to see a work like "The Last Vampire".
But the aesthetics of the scenes of Hiroyuki Kitakubo and Enomi hisashi, and the reflections that Oshii Mori and Kenji Kamiyama want to convey to the audience, will never go out of style.
This is also the eternal charm of such old works.
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