Cinema Suicide

I have my problems with Mamorou Oshii. Personality quirks aside, such as an otaku-grade obsession with Basset Hounds, he is the king of anticlimax. His anime and film, Avalon, have a tendency to plod along at a snail’s pace until everything starts falling into place in the final moments of the movie when it suddenly gets really good… and then rolls credits. It’s as though he’s never heard of the three-act structure. It would be one thing if he were experimenting with the ways in which we tell stories, but even the most avant know when to call it quits and try something else if their approach doesn’t work. Still, Oshii has an arresting visual style that helps me ignore the fact that his movies go nowhere until the very end. I’m not ready to give up on him yet and this trailer tells you nothing about the movie (it is a teaser, after all), but once again, it’s a real sight to behold. Attractive women wielding very large guns attack giant monsters. What more do you need to know? How’s about this:

In the aftermath of global thermonuclear war, the Earth’s surface has been turned into a desert battlefield. Three beautiful female hunters: Gray (Meisa Kuroki), Lucifer (Rinko Kikuchi), and Colonel (Hinako Saeki)  traverse the barren landscape armed with powerful assault rifles to fight a group of deadly sand-dwelling monsters called “sunakujira” (sand whales). When the the epic battle eventually seems to be coming to an end, the sparkle of muzzle flash dies down and assault ship flies overhead. Suddenly, a gigantic super mutation called “Madara Sunakujira” attacks.