One debris cloud marks the whereabouts of the invisible monster in the valley. Only when it stops at a substation and steals some electricity does the gigantic creature become visible. Tasked with stopping Neronga, the latest cinematic supermonster in the Godzilla tradition, in the hills of Japan, the human team acts quickly and shuts down the power. Thanks to several decades of dealing with movie monsters, the team of S-Class Species Suppression Protocol (SSSP) some experience. Outraged, the monster slams the substation to lumps. The team is at a loss. But just when the situation seems hopeless, help flies in from space. A silver giant rushes by at 12,000 km/h. It is unaffected by the beam of electricity that the monster sends out of its horn. He absorbs the radiation for minutes before using it in turn to pulverize the monster. In a report after the incident, the SSSP team gave the silver giant its name Ultraman.
After reviving the Godzilla franchise with “Shin Godzilla” in 2016, Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno are now turning their attention to the character of Ultraman, who first enjoyed success on Japanese television in the 1960s and has since become one far beyond the borders of Japan popular multimedia phenomenon. Shin Ultraman is part of this year’s Critics’ Week.
Shinji Kaminaga becomes the only member of the SSSP team Exposed to Ultraman’s raysas he throws himself protectively over a child during Neronga’s attack. Apparently he is unharmed. While the SSSP is still in the process of following up the events with Neronga and informing Japan’s international partners about the event, a new monster appears, heading for a nuclear waste disposal site. Unbeknownst to his peers, Kaminaga has been able to transform himself into a giant since being exposed to the original Ultraman’s radiation. Just before the new monster reaches the nuclear waste disposal site, Kaminaga is able to defeat it.
The Monstermanagement the SSSP and Ultraman’s appearances are surrounded by one in Higuchi political intrigue of Japanese and international politics. After Ultraman’s defeat of the second monster, Zarab, another alien, appears. Under the pretense of peaceful relations with Earth, he begins to pit the countries of Earth against each other in order to annihilate humanity. In order to be able to do this undisturbed, Zarab makes Ultraman disappear.
In his film, Higuchi acknowledges the characters’ roots in 1960s pop culture. The leads that lead the SSSP to Ultraman—photo negatives, fluorescent ink, typewriter sheets—are all analog. Ultraman’s fights with the monsters are more like street fights than technical fireworks. At the same time, Higuchi and screenwriter Anno resist the temptation to turn the film into a retro spectacle. With a sense for detail, they keep the balance between reference to the template from the 1960s and contemporary. Ultraman’s battle scenes, with their red rays and sand-colored surroundings, pick up on the color of the special effects of the classics, but the SSSP’s offices are more timeless. the technology of the present is not overstated with surface bling to appear futuristic. “Shin Ultraman” is great spectacle cinema, which wraps its show values with enough plot to add another layer of conflict without overloading the film with Marvel-style script pirouettes. A perfect film for the end of a festival day.
Fabian Tietke
Shin Ultraman – Japan 2022 – Regie: Shinji Higuchi – Buch: Hideaki Anno – Darsteller: Takumi Saitoh, Masami Nagasawa, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Daiki Arioka, Akari Hayami – Laufzeit: 112 Minuten.
“Shin Ultraman” is on 19.2. and on 24.2. to be seen at the Hackesche Höfe cinema as part of the Berlin Critics’ Week.
