Wicked City

Publisher
Manga Entertainment
Director
Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Film
Running time
81 mins
Year
1987

Wicked City VHS

By John Huxley
23rd May 04

Wicked City is often unfairly described as hentai, or anime pornography. Yes, it does have sex scenes, but look a little deeper and you'll find that the sex scenes are not for titillation at all, but merely provide a means by which the director can progress the story through exploring the character's personalities and exploiting victim's weaknesses. That aside, Wicked City follows a group known as the Black Guard who uphold the peace agreement set up centuries before to keep the human world and the demon world apart. At the end of the century this peace agreement is up for renewal, so the more depraved side of the demon world is taking this window of opportunity to break into the human world and wreak havoc.

It plays out more like an espionage thriller than your average horror film, with the story firmly routed in politics and some pretty obvious hints at real-world events. The two main characters are from different sides of the track, providing a view from both angles and giving us a more intriguing tale to follow. These two characters also turn out to be pivotal to the plot, providing the basis of the whole peace agreement, but we don't find this out until later on in the film. As with Yoshiaki Kawajiri's other films, Wicked City is based around a classic fairy tale structure (hero, princess, etc) and is none more obvious here. The old man who sends them on their journey is put to particularly good use as a comic relief, and trust me, we need comic relief in Wicked City. He's very funny right at the end of the film, cutting into the big romantic scene with perfect timing.

The art work and animation is typical Kawajiri (read: good, but not the best), yet the colour pallette here is all dark and blue. This is may be to suggest the dark and foreboding nature of the subject matter, but probably just shows that it's mostly set at night. The creature designs from the demon world are the highlight of the show, giving us some sick transformations and a spider-lady who just wants to make me squirm. This is all well and good, but the promising plot never really gets going and the characters just aren't developed enough to keep me interested in their fate - the hero himself is especially dull, verging on asshole territory. I prefer Wicked City to Monster City (Yoshiaki Kawajiri's other, very similar film) because this has more of a plot to it and the monster design is a little more original, but there isn't much to choose between the two. If you can get the two films packaged together it would represent and excellent purchase, but separately they just don't deliver the goods. More of a cult thing, I guess.

-- John Huxley 23rd May 04

Wicked City Images