[Review]Parasite Eve (Japan)
08-21-01, 03:40 AM
#1
DVD Talk Legend
Thread Starter
[Review]Parasite Eve (Japan)
"It's Not a Virus, It's Evolution"
Parasite Eve is both a best-selling book and a popular Playstation video game. Now it's a movie (1997). There is an anime in the works and Madonna apparently bought the rights to the story and maybe plans to do a US film adaptation of it. I had pre-ordered it thinking it would be an anime. ADV released it and they are known for releasing mostly anime, so I was surprised to see it was a live-action film from Japan.
It starts out with a biochemist working on rat liver cultures and seemingly too busy to pay enough attention to his wife who "spaces out" and crashes her car into the back of a semi truck. She is rushed to the hospital and kept alive by machines. Our biochemist is heartbroken of course.
Elsewhere, a young girl is suffering with a bad kidney and needs a transplant - as luck would have it, the biochemist's wife is a perfect match. He reluctantly allows for his wife to be the organ donor and for her to be taken off of life support - on the condition that he be able to have her liver.
He takes her liver to the lab and does his liver culture on it and puts what's left of her into a petrie dish (which he talks to as if it was his wife and stares at under a microscope)... the liver culture erupts from the dish and has sex with the biochemist in the form of his wife. Then it takes over the body of his co-worker and makes her say "we are mitochondria and we have been here for millions of years and we are taking the earth back - so prepare to meet your doom" or something like that... "Humanity... Farewell"
Everybody says "Mitochondria" about 100 times each in this film and there is a good amount of talking trying to educate the audience about simple biochemistry. It gets a bit tedious, but the film doesn't. It's a Love story disguised as a Japanese horror film. It's pretty silly and seems to be along the lines of Body Snatchers/The Puppet Masters and The Abyss, but with a biochemical twist. My final verdict is that the film is pretty stupid, but still managed to keep me interested. It was also strange enough to appeal to me on that level. I'll have to give it a C. It's a passing grade... something that wouldn't be a total waste of time to watch, but you won't be missing much if you skip it.
The production values are high - it looks pretty slick and the budget is about what you would expect from an HBO movie or series like Tales from the Crypt or more like the Showtime channel's The Outer Limits. The cinematography is great and the imagery is superb. They were a little photoshop happy with some of the effects, so it looks convincing and surreal at the same time.
The transfer is VERY clean, and the sound is 2.0. There are few extras to speak of - just a trailer for this film and one for another Japanese movie (The Hypnotist) that looks pretty cool. It's presented in non-anamorphic widescreen, in the original language, and with burned-in subs that are VERY clear and easy to read. ADV did a pretty good job with this DVD as they usually do with their Anime stuff. If you have a desire to see this film, you can pick it up pretty cheap at www.bestprices.com since they have a special deal with ADV and offer prices at up to 44% off msrp.
I recommend this as a rental for sure for Japanese romance/horror film fans and a possible purchase for die hard fans of the video game.
Parasite Eve is both a best-selling book and a popular Playstation video game. Now it's a movie (1997). There is an anime in the works and Madonna apparently bought the rights to the story and maybe plans to do a US film adaptation of it. I had pre-ordered it thinking it would be an anime. ADV released it and they are known for releasing mostly anime, so I was surprised to see it was a live-action film from Japan.
It starts out with a biochemist working on rat liver cultures and seemingly too busy to pay enough attention to his wife who "spaces out" and crashes her car into the back of a semi truck. She is rushed to the hospital and kept alive by machines. Our biochemist is heartbroken of course.
Elsewhere, a young girl is suffering with a bad kidney and needs a transplant - as luck would have it, the biochemist's wife is a perfect match. He reluctantly allows for his wife to be the organ donor and for her to be taken off of life support - on the condition that he be able to have her liver.
He takes her liver to the lab and does his liver culture on it and puts what's left of her into a petrie dish (which he talks to as if it was his wife and stares at under a microscope)... the liver culture erupts from the dish and has sex with the biochemist in the form of his wife. Then it takes over the body of his co-worker and makes her say "we are mitochondria and we have been here for millions of years and we are taking the earth back - so prepare to meet your doom" or something like that... "Humanity... Farewell"
Everybody says "Mitochondria" about 100 times each in this film and there is a good amount of talking trying to educate the audience about simple biochemistry. It gets a bit tedious, but the film doesn't. It's a Love story disguised as a Japanese horror film. It's pretty silly and seems to be along the lines of Body Snatchers/The Puppet Masters and The Abyss, but with a biochemical twist. My final verdict is that the film is pretty stupid, but still managed to keep me interested. It was also strange enough to appeal to me on that level. I'll have to give it a C. It's a passing grade... something that wouldn't be a total waste of time to watch, but you won't be missing much if you skip it.
The production values are high - it looks pretty slick and the budget is about what you would expect from an HBO movie or series like Tales from the Crypt or more like the Showtime channel's The Outer Limits. The cinematography is great and the imagery is superb. They were a little photoshop happy with some of the effects, so it looks convincing and surreal at the same time.
The transfer is VERY clean, and the sound is 2.0. There are few extras to speak of - just a trailer for this film and one for another Japanese movie (The Hypnotist) that looks pretty cool. It's presented in non-anamorphic widescreen, in the original language, and with burned-in subs that are VERY clear and easy to read. ADV did a pretty good job with this DVD as they usually do with their Anime stuff. If you have a desire to see this film, you can pick it up pretty cheap at www.bestprices.com since they have a special deal with ADV and offer prices at up to 44% off msrp.
I recommend this as a rental for sure for Japanese romance/horror film fans and a possible purchase for die hard fans of the video game.
Last edited by Trigger; 08-21-01 at 04:14 AM.
08-23-01, 10:10 PM
#3
DVD Talk Legend
Thread Starter
Positive - I popped it in my PC just now (which will change the shape of the window if it's anamorphic) and the bars were there. I've tried other anamorphic discs and when I pop them in, my Hollywood plus decoder card reshapes the window to the size of the movie and doesn't include the bars. I don't have a widescreen TV, so there's a 1% chance I'm wrong - but it looks to me like they don't know the definition of "anamorphic".
10-22-01, 04:31 PM
#5
DVD Talk Legend
Thread Starter
Sorry for moving this quote here - but I figured since it's not an anime, it was more appropriate here. 
This was in response to my saying "Warning to anyone wanting to purchase ADV's Parasite Eve DVD thinking it will be an anime based on the Playstation video game... it's a live action movie - I'll let you know if it's any good" over in the Anime discussion thread. As you can see, I was originally going to reply in that thread.
As you know already, I posted my review here, but I totally agree with you. I wished it had gone somewhere - but it just went all goofy. Twelve bucks well spent though I suppose.
This was in response to my saying "Warning to anyone wanting to purchase ADV's Parasite Eve DVD thinking it will be an anime based on the Playstation video game... it's a live action movie - I'll let you know if it's any good" over in the Anime discussion thread. As you can see, I was originally going to reply in that thread.
Originally posted by nekobus
Pretty silly ending IMO, but Riona Hazuki is such a cutie that for $12 it was pretty good.
Pretty silly ending IMO, but Riona Hazuki is such a cutie that for $12 it was pretty good.
As you know already, I posted my review here, but I totally agree with you. I wished it had gone somewhere - but it just went all goofy. Twelve bucks well spent though I suppose.
