I came across Gunhed a few weeks ago as I was browsing through Pinterest. Noticing a character design that seemed quite cool and interesting, I looked into it a bit more to find out it belonged to a Japanese set of films known as Gunhed. What the heck is Gunhed? I found myself asking. Curious as to why I had never heard of it before despite being a very big fan of mecha and cyberpunk films. Usually aware of the most popular titles and also the more niche ones; but how could Gunhed possibly slip through the cracks? My initial thoughts were that it just wasn't very good, or that it was almost considered lost media and just fell out of both relevance in time, and accessibility. Though both of these can be correct.
Under the Toho branding, it is a film that was given a fairly moderate budget and set of attention. Being a Japanese realise around the height of the cyberpunk tech noir greats and the Japanese animation boom of mecha. Japan of course wanting to increase their capitalisation of these genres, heavily influenced by Hollywood's own attempts as blockbusters were thrown out, creating hit after hit as the independent side also tried to catch some of it. Gunhed, however, having an advantage given the genre's themes lining up nicely with the location itself. A Japanese title, though with heavy western influence as it battles English and Japanese dialogue with a mixture of Japanese and western characters.
Gunhed, very quickly, made it clear that it was a film of pure soul. A film that was made at the height of two genres, while not itself being capable of reaching the status of the greats, but having a nice amount of everything to pull the nostalgia out of me and have me remembering the excitement I once had for such titles and themes. Reviving the early cyberpunk joy I had when I came across something that really felt as if it knew the genre, exploring a bit of everything. All while still having that fun of filmmaking behind it that allowed it to remain an enjoyable viewing experience despite its weaknesses.
Gunhed
As mentioned, Gunhed is not too far from reaching into the lost media realm. Being a film that is very difficult to find. Especially in an upscaled, more modern quality that actually makes viewing it possible. It took me a while to search through the internet in attempt to find it, mostly coming across the international release on DVD, rips of these uploaded to the internet and with very low quality. Reading up through forums I found that others had also struggled to find it. Discovering a niche fanbase this film has and a longing to preserve the film, while also ensuring others can discover it. I came across mentions that Toho had also been actively suppressing discussion of the film due to Japan's very weird, and rather normal, behaviour to such things over the years. The same thing tends to happen in regards to Nintendo and how fans attempt to offer better preservation and distribution of its content than the company does.
Over the weeks I have had struggles finding time to really get through Gunhed, but I couldn't help but write some words appreciating what I had seen so far. With an opening scene very much pulled from the success of The Terminator: a large set of destructive mechas roll through an environment, causing endless destruction over the sounds of mechanical chaos. A setup of text that details a brief bit of narrative. It was quick to see that Gunhed holds a lot of influence from western greats of the time: Alien, The Terminator, Blade Runner, and its own creations within its anime industry. With clear inspirations pulled from video games in regards to the directing style and music. Of which I have a major guilty pleasure for! The set design in this film is awesome, while cheap sometimes, it's all very much physical due to the era. Built sets and cities of small scale and utilised to full.
Character designs that really pull the punk from cyberpunk. Even down to the weapons used, of which I'm sure manga and anime had some contributions. Particularly in how the guns sound and how the characters are visualised. I found myself feeling a nostalgia over the music as well, remembering the man PlayStation 1 games I would play that used a similar style of using music to amplify ambience. Repetitive sounds and simple tones that play throughout the film, often reused and contributing to scene changes and atmosphere. I have mentioned in the past how much I love that The X Files also does this, and how underappreciated simple music really is in modern filmmaking. How we have lost ambient atmosphere building and replaced it instead with lyrical music that just does not have the same weight, purely because of marketing. Due to its era, Gunhed is free from this, and the music and sound design is just great, making modern realises sound weak in comparison. Though I am not surprised given one of the directors here worked on a few Godzilla franchise titles.
Add to this a gritty, cyberpunk atmosphere and set of colours. Where the film is shot on 35mm and as a result full of grain. I feel that modern cyberpunk and science fiction fails to capture the atmosphere high technology and low life quality due to the cleanliness of modern science fiction. Not only in design as touchscreen interfaces come into play, but also the abandonment of film format productions in favour of digital, sharp cameras and lenses. Much of the again atmosphere being lost. Gunhed is very much mechanical, loud, gritty and with characters covered in dust and dirt. Greased up and bloody. And that's how I feel the cyberpunk genre should be. All of these little aspects of filmmaking and attention to detail have made me quickly fall in love with what is otherwise a very mediocre genre chasing title from the late 80s. I can't help it! I haven't even finished the film yet it brings back this passion for a genre I once had that was slowly lost.
I really look forward to finishing the film when I can, and writing about each of these things more extensively, with more opinions and awareness of the film's narrative. But for now, there are still so many things to appreciate here. From an era of filmmaking that didn't mind things deeming a bit cheap sometimes, with unknown actors you've likely never seen before and never will see again. Holding filmmaking techniques now considered dated and long gone. I know one thing for sure so far: Gunhed is a film I would've been obsessed with growing up. And even now, it's likely you'll see a review in a few days with some of that cyberpunk passion reappearing.
