Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Has The First Truly Great Video Game Movie Been Made?

Below, the trailer for "Gyakuten Saiban" - known to Western gamers as "Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney" - directed by the legendary Takeshi Miike...



I've said it for years: Adapt the games that have their own wholly unique aesthetic and put it in the hands of filmmakers who "get it." If I'm to be proven right, all the better that it be by Miike.

11 comments:

David said...

OH MY F****** GOD!

It's so lame it's incredibly awesome!

Just like the games! lol

Make sure this one goes to "Escape to the Movies". :)

Mads said...

I really liked the Hitman movie.

I've played the games so I know everything thats going on - but I really liked it all the same, and I thought they did the aesthetic correctly.

KevinCV said...

The interesting thing about this is that the Phoenix Wright games are based on how the actual Japanese court system operates. So in Japan, this could be seen as a very anime-like satire of their court system.

However, here in the States, it would probably be seen as a quirky Japanese parody of "Law and Order". I wouldn't have it any other way, frankly cos "Law and Order" takes itself way too fucking seriously. Goddammit, I hope it gets released here... XD

JohnBob said...

Are we not counting Scott Pilgrim?

I mean, I know it WASN'T a video game, but in terms of proving your theory of videogame tropes and aesthetic being handled by a director knowing what he was doing could work; surely that was the prototype to prove the point?

But still, nice that Takashi is the one who is taking it beyond theory in any case.

Eshwin said...

I'm on the fence. Takeshi Miike has had moments of true greatness to be sure, but he's also a director who cranks films out way, way too fast, and sometimes this rate of production can come at the cost of quality.

Smashmatt202 said...

Oh HELLZ yeah! :D

stickmangrit said...

@Eshwin

"Takeshi Miike has had moments of true greatness to be sure, but he's also a director who cranks films out way, way too fast, and sometimes this rate of production can come at the cost of quality."

thing is, most of those movies are hastily patched together crap for a reason. he'll take a dozen "for hire" gigs to scrape together the cash for his next personal project, and usually be working on it the whole time. the question then is, is this a project he gives a shit about, or is it one of his many mercenary gigs. the fact that he's showing such loyalty to the frankly ridiculous looking style of the games is a very encouraging sign of the former being true.

ScrewAttackSamus said...

No, that would be the Professor Layton movie that was released yesterday in America.

kirinnokoshin said...

Well here's hoping. I can't actually think of a single live action film based on a game that was handled by a good director, let alone a good director who understands the culture surrounding the root material. Miikes' 13 Assassins and Harikiri: Death of Samurai are both excellent pieces of Cinema, so we have every reason to believe that the notion of all films based on games are terrible may soon face an....

OBJECTION! :-)

RaikuNH said...

Too bad we're not getting a release here even on DVD. Thank you Capcom for your stupidity.

Anonymous said...

it's idiots like raikunh who think scott pilgrim did well in the box office, or that a movie based on a japanese video game maybe 1% of the american audience played would sell well on dvds. i'm excited for this movie and whatnot, but i'm not going to pretend the industry is full of idiots for not pandering to my tastes