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| From https://myanimelist.cdn-dena.com/ images/anime/3/8745.jpg |
Director: Hyunse Lee
Screenplay: Hyunse Lee
Based on the novel by Hyunse Lee
Voice Cast: Alexis Lang as Heisung,
the Delta Boy; Wendee Lee as Marie Kim/Pandora; Abe Lasser as Hades; Steve Blum
as Commander Kaseros; Dougary Grant as Narrator; Gil Starberry as Tantharos;
Jackson Daniels as Gamma 66-66; Melissa Williamson as Queen Hera
Viewed in English Dub
Synopsis: Heisung, a South Korean student, finds himself the one
true hope for Earth's future called the "Delta Boy", part of an
Millennia old tale of Earth being one of many planets created as part of an
experiment. Rhose who evolved from dinosaurs on an alien world, the 'Eed', will
soon to invade Earth and eliminate most of mankind in the future. Thrown into
said future, when most of humanity has been wiped out, Heisung must become the
chosen one to prevent this.
[Warning: This review will include a spoiler for a early plot twist. I
will include a warning where it is and ends in the review so you, the reader, can
skip it if you want to keep it secret to yourself.]
Cue a film that looks like a
seventies rock album cover crossed with a remake of Space Adventure Cobra (1982). Yet the production is from South
Korea, part of a very complicated history of the Korean animation industry. South
Korea is famous for its studios which do outsourcing work for anything from
anime from Japan to even The Simpsons,
the later emphasised when artist Banksy's
infamous couch gag, depicting their studio as a sweatshop, actually offended Akom, the Korean studio which has been
helping to animate the legendary American series since 1989. This is complicated
because, in spite of this or that they have created characters like Mashimaro
the rabbit that are popular in other corners of the world, very little South
Korean animation is known in the English language countries in the West.
Because of this, I could never
give a proper history because I myself know as much (i.e. little) as many
would. To however attempt to time stamp Armageddon, before its release in 1996
there have been many animated films made within that country, and not just Robot Taekwon V (1976) or the various
infamous examples of studios copying directly from other sources (such as Space Gundam V (1983), a TV series
which openly includes details from the likes of the Macross franchise from Japan). After Armageddon, things start to slowly expand out into the West in
terms of knowledge of South Korean animation bit-by-bit to the current day. Armageddon was picked up by Manga Entertainment, alongside Red Hawk (1995), within that period. Things
picked up considerably when Sky Blue
(aka. Wonderful Days) (2003) was picked up by Tartan Video for Western release in the UK, which was arguably big
in terms of international recognition. [Sadly Aachi and Ssipak (2006), a film included in promotional materials
for the former Optimum Rising (now Studio Canal) DVD distributor, never
came to British DVD]. Things picked up even more considerably in the 2010s when
The King of Pigs (2011) gained
critical buzz as well as international distribution. We are awaiting in terms
of South Korean animation to be more widely available beyond this, the question
of whether it will be as prolific in availability as with Japanese animation.
Now we return back to the
nineties, when Manga Entertainment
decides to acquire the licenses to a theatrical feature named Armageddon (1996), predating Michael
Bay's tale of miners on an asteroid by two years. One has to be aware that,
knowing Manga Entertainment's legacy for tampering with their acquisitions,
such as adding gratuitous swearing to English dubs, that Armageddon as we know of it and can only really access it in the
West on second hand DVD and video tape is probably different from the original
version even if it terms of tone of the dialogue, so that must be in mind too. Credit
where it's due, if we're talking about the production designers and background
animation, they are to be applauded for at least trying their hardest with this
theatrical production. Except CGI from the period, no one should complain about
the elaborate intergalactic backgrounds or the details of the spaceships. Even
if the dino-robot monster that appears at one-point, and the alien life forms
in general, look like children's toys they have character, someone having fun
designing them.
When this production is being
imaginative, it musters a lot of ambition, especially as the director Hyunse Lee was also the author of the
source material. It belongs to the kind of psychedelic, out there sci-fi I
prefer over hard science fiction anyway, where the universe is a bizarre
spiritual/gonzo reality of elaborate bright colours and strange entities. A galaxy,
no matter how silly it sounds, where the main villain is ultimately revealed to
be a giant brain in a jar. Even the protagonist's own brain upon entering it,
when Heisung is briefly killed at one point, is a world of pulsating
bio-bizarre environmental flesh and strange sights, feeding into my love even
in the dodgiest of animation of whenever characters enter phantom zones, to
either be instructed on their fates or because they've been trapped there, an
excuse for the production designers to create the most intentionally unnatural
places they can. (Usually with everything floating in the air, which sadly
isn't the case here).
There is as well the deeply silly
moments which also, in honestly have charm to them, this type of sci-fi being
so over-the-top you have to admit it gets ridiculous too. You cannot take
serious a film where said giant dinosaur robot does have a name you'd expect
for a child's toy. Nor the inexplicably giant shark massacre, a pointless
training scene for the protagonist which ends with him and another character
getting into peril underwater, defeating the purpose of the practice, and
gunning down giant sharks in gory detail for no justifiable reason.
| From https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ3eKT8HupZLiSSNMhkehleFs_qoti39o95mu2f9tuprBfefGFj |
However I will confess that, whilst Armageddon has charm, it's also plagued by the many traits of bad sci-fi in general. Whilst I admire its bright and colourful look, if we're talking about the humanoid characters however, stretches and limitations are there and they are awkward. Alongside the plot itself, the film stretches its limitations with some amateurish issues. The character's faces, especially their facial expressions, are just amiss even for a viewer like myself with no animation training in the slightest. This is more so as even into the final, more serious thirty minutes of Heisung going to fight an evil alien computer in a far off galaxy, there are still random slapstick comedy moments which are abrupt and, in attempting to crowbar a love story which is inherently with huge moral issues within it, enforce this problem when characters are acting comedically with exaggeration at one second and then have to be serious. The switch in plasticity in mannerisms is not well coordinated and, unlike the exaggeration in Japanese anime, a lot of it in this production (or another like Blue Seagull (1994)) feel like they're inspired by old Looney Tunes animation, which feels tonally off. The less said about your secondary villain Commander Kaseros - stoic and boring, a member of the Eed forces who starts to question his place in the world but ultimately wasting time in the plot - never being seen without his black sunglasses the better. It might work for Corey Hart to wear sunglasses at night, but here even when floating in outer space without need for suffocation, as he is at one point, its comical. More so when, due to plot reasons, he's a giant entity barechested and waving a sword, but still got to keep the sunglasses in his new state.
Baring in mind Manga Entertainment may have taken
liberties with the script, Armageddon
also has the script which crams so much into less than ninety minutes, that there are plot turns which will give you
whiplash. Ten minutes is all that you get for Heisung's personal life as a kid
living in present South Korea. His family is briefly kidnapped early on by Eed
assassins only to whisked away to safety and never seen again, likely long dead
when Heisung travels to the future. Even then his mother's reduced to the Obi-Wan
Kenobi state of passing on meaningful encouragement from flashbacks. Heisung's
brief moments in his normal is also means he looks like a ten year old, his
alien protector and potential love interest Pandora looking like an adult in
contrast when she appears to protect him, which makes their romantic montage
scored to K-pop weird. Even when he's fully developed into the hero with muscle
and gruffness, the man-child's romance with Pandora is so limited in
development that the emotional scenes can only use footage from earlier in the
film for later.
[Spoiler Warning]
Which is worse when Pandora is killed
half thirty minutes in. The sad montage Heisung has, when looking at a replica
of her in included in her home planet's hall of heroes, involves all the
footage within the previous length of the film that isn't even from romantic
scenes with the hero, causing one to want to shout at Armageddon that it hasn't earned the emotional beat. Insult is
added to injury when her twin sister, and ruler of her home planet, becomes the
new love interest in a way inherently problematic as if one twin can replaced
the other. Even her aide and guide for Heisung on his way to becoming the Delta
Boy gets into the creepiness by desiring to get the two to fall in love merely
to propagate a child, clearly as an alien not used to this idea that one should
naturally becoming romantic at least from the beliefs of human beings.
[Spoiler Ends]
The abruptness of the plot twists
is intermingled with how the inherent ridiculousness of the plot. An example of
sci-fi which blurs scientism with post-New Age tone in imagining giant
computers creating worlds, our true villain a literal giant brain in a jar, yet
with all the cod-philosophy of such a horrible concoction and a figure
literally named Gaia who is the soul of the Earth...in spite of the fact it's within
the same story as Earth being micromanaged by a giant computer. If one ever
wanted to see, in CGI of the time, giant sperm entering a vortex in space and
(by intentional suggestion) give birth to a giant dinosaur head sticking out in
space, and then a primate head, than this is the film for you, but after that
its why that as much as I love out there, idiosyncratic (and sometimes utterly
corny) sci-fi when its cosmic ideas and willingness to bend conventions of
reality, when the tone's muddled like this I realise why I have very little
interest in science fiction of any sort. Armageddon
as a result is the kind of animation, if you can still appreciate some of the
production, that's better with the sound turned off. This is not the horrible
disaster that is Blue Seagull, just
a film from some time later which is undeniably bad but one can still gain some
satisfaction from in places. As a result, its definitely a guilty pleasure, as
all the flaws mentioned are impossible to dismiss.
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| From http://www.craiglotter.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ armageddon-korean-anime-screenshot.png |
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