Remember I posted up some Tokusatsu series Wild Seven? They made it into a movie now and I had the pleasure watching it on the plane when I was on my way to the conference in Santa Clara!
Wild Seven is basically about a special task force of ex-convicts that operates above the law. They make sure gangsters (yakuza) and terrorists get neutralized in time. Most of them are either murderers, arsonists and even one of them used to be a bosozoku leader. That last character obviously does not follow the original storyline at all as the original used to fight against “scum” like the bosozoku.
Obviously it is a remake, so it will never grasp that 70s style of the original but I must say I really had a great time watching it! Instead of blowing up a Crown S40 estate they blew up two Nissan Stagea WC34 wagons (as seen in the screenshot above) up in the first ten minutes. You can also expect a lot of “bippu” carnage as they are taking out a couple of the big bosses. The Nissan Stagea is becoming more and more a cult classic, so blowing up these wagons increase the price of existing ones…
Also the storyline is a bit thin. I won’t reveal too much, but a large part of the action reminded me of the Green Hornet remake done in the same year (2011).
This is the movie trailer:
Pretty impressive action and the CGI of this movie is phenomenal. I do wonder if they also did CGI on the Nissan Stagea…
I was also able to find the original TV opening video:
As you can see there is, apart from 40 years, quite a big difference between the two.
And I was also able to find the Anime spin off. Originally Wild Seven was a manga, so naturally a anime series was created in the early 80s:
It isn’t really bad, but nothing like the amazing 70s live action stunts.
Somehow I do prefer the 70s over any of the versions. Just a bummer you can’t find any here.
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