NEW ATTEMPTS
Love it or hate it, as most people do, there is no denying that Speed Racer is pure anime come-to-life, from its physics defying action set-pieces to the use of motion lines in a fight scene and its filming and camerawork. Even the storytelling structure with its flashy time-jumping editing is reminiscent of a cartoon. Despite the critical negativity and failure to perform at the box office, Speed Racer has since become an under-rated yet appreciated cult fan favourite.
The following year saw anime favourite Dragonball come-to-life with Dragonball: Evolution. Despite having Dragonball super-fan, Stephan Chow on board as producer, the movie failed to connect with the fans and received a far more severe critical lashing. Even creator Akira Toriyama felt slighted by the Hollywood machine for not listening to his ideas and suggestions. It leaves one to wonder what Stephan Chow might have done had he decided to write and direct the movie himself.
The next time another movie based on an anime property turned up, we got Kite in 2014 which was based on the 1999 OVA of the same name featuring a young assassin. Nothing much can be said about this movie except that it certainly does not help any other anime adaptations. The movie was a critical bomb was a direct-to-video release in most countries.
There are three more movies some may point to, but let’s just note that there were no anime adaptations of these works. Priest (2011) starring Paul Bettany was based on a Korean comic while Oldboy (2013) was a remake of a Korean film based on a manga property. And despite its source material being a Japanese light novel with a manga adaptation, All You Need is Kill (book) a.k.a. Edge of Tomorrow (2014) starring Tom Cruise also had no anime adaptation.
