Casshern
CASSHERN (キャシャーン) is a dark science fiction / action film released on April 24, 2004, written, directed and edited by Kiriya Kazuaki. It is half based on the minor 70's anime Shinzou Ningen Casshan (新造人間キャシャーン) and William Shakespear's Hamlet, though it has many aspects of George Orwell's 1984.
CASSHERN was one of the first films to be completely filmed on a greenscreen where actors act in front of the screen and computers add all the details after the shooting (this is called 'Digital Backlot').
CASSHERN is set in the mid 21st century in a parallel universe to ours, in which the planet is ruled over by totalian governments and has been ravaged by biological weapons. A geneticist, Azuma-hakase Kotaro, believes that he has found a way to rejuvenate human body parts, but the experiment goes deadly wrong and something has been inadvertantly created which threatens the existance of humanity itself.
The film had mixed reviews; as Kiriya was praised for it's aesthetics, but was shunted for his overly complex storyline. His defence of this is that it was meant to be like a dream, or somebody's nightmare. He stated that nightmares don't have to make sense, but you have to go with the flow of ideas.
Music of CASSHERN
The theme used for CASSHERN is Utada Hikaru's Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro. The background music for CASSHERN was composed by Shiro Sagisu and Satoshi Tomiie. CASSHERN also has two soundtracks; these are:
- [2004.04.23] Our Last Days -Casshern OST- - Disk one is a collection of famous Toshiba-EMI artist's music that either appears in CASSHERN or is a tribute to CASSHERN. The second disk is a partial collection of the background music that plays in CASSHERN.
- [2004.08.20] CASSHERN ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK (Complete Edition) - A complete collection of the background music featured in CASSHERN. This features some of the songs that were on the first soundtrack as well as songs that did not make it to the first soundtrack.
Cast
Several of the cast is featured in the music video for Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro. They are marked with a #.
- Iseya Yusuke - Casshern / Azuma Tetsuya
- Aso Kumiko - Kozuki Luna
- #Terao Akira - Azuma-Hakase Kotaro
- #Higuchi Kanako - Azuma Midori
- Kohinata Fumiyo - Hakase Kozuki
- Miyasako Hiroyuki - Akubon
- #'Kaname Jun - Barashin
- Nishijima Hidetoshi - Lieutenant Colonel Kamijo
- #Oikawa Mitsuhiro - Naito Kaoru
- Terajima Susumu - Sakamoto
- Otaki Hideji - Kamijou-Sousai
- Mihashi Tatsuya - Hakase Furoi
- Karasawa Toshiaki - Burai
- Sada Mayumi - Saguree
- Naya Gorou - Narrator
