Over the years Manga has come to dominate the Japanese film industry. Many of the successful graphic novels have been transformed into animated TV series or movies. This makes sense since the pages are like reading storyboards to a film. It’s quite easy to imagine adding motion to them. Quite a few have been adapted to live action movies. But there’s always a problem when humans play the drawings: fans easily get upset that the stars don’t truly look like their favorite characters. Go Nagai is a legend of manga with his works including Devilman, Cutie Honey and Mazinger Z. When director Kurando Mitsutake approached the legend about making a live action movie of one of his books, Go Nagai gave him an original concept that hadn’t been published before. This allowed Mitsutake to create Lion-Girl without having preexisting conceptions from fans. This is great since the film can have the look and attitude of a Go Nagai creation without people comparing how it looked on the page or played in the Anime series. Lion-Girl exists in live action alone.
Deep into the 2500s, the Earth is pummeled by a meteorite shower. This causes widespread destruction. The last vestige of humanity gets the nastier news that surviving this bombardment in space isn’t that great. The people have moved to a zone called Neo-Nippon to escape the radiation. But the meteors have brought to the world a way to transform normal humans into evil demon creatures that also look like animals. They are hunting down the last of the humans for diabolical purposes. The only hope for many relies on a young woman (20.0 Megaquake‘s Tori Griffith) who when exposed, didn’t turn into a demon. Instead she just has a glowing back and super-human skills. She has the ability to fight back against the demonic forces. She’s trained by (The Chadwick Journals‘ Damian Toofeek Raven) to be an even better fighter. She also gets lion costume and becomes Lion-Girl. Can she really be able to give humanity a shot at rebuilding as every demonic creature comes after her?
Lion-Girl is a fun low budget film that gives off the feel of manga panels on the screen. Instead of giant set pieces, director Kurando Mitsutake gives us what looks like panels from a comic book. He didn’t have to spend a fortune of meteorites smashing into the planet. This also allows us to know that this is a manga come to life. The makeup effects don’t overdo the demonic creatures. The first scene where people transform takes place in a warehouse/shower room and they don’t cover the creatures completely in effects. The film has a great throwback quality with the video effects to show off the wasteland qualities and the supernatural fighting. Lion-Girl also has the throwback quality found in Andy Sidaris movie (Picasso Trigger) with the cast stripping down and showering as part of the story. Tori Griffith keeps the Lion-Girl role fun to watch between her fights. She would have been great in a Sidaris movie. Lion-Girl is all hers since she looks comfortable in the effects driven fights while wearing a shiny cos-play outfit designed by Go Nagai. Lion-Girl is joyfully over the top like an entertaining post-apocalyptic comic book movie.
Video is 1.85:1 anamorphic. The movie has a good post meteorite apocalypse feel on the screen. The Audio is Dolby Digital 5.1 and also Dolby Digital 2.0. ou can hear the action from around the room or just straight from the screen. While it seems like the film would be made in Japan, this is from California and the cast speaks English.
Introduction by Go Nagai (0:48) has the legend happy that his characters are now in a film.
Director’s Commentary Track has him talk about cast and crew. He gets into what an influence Go Nagai has been in his life and work.
Conversation with Go Nagai (28:20) has him talking about his career with director Kurando Mitsutake. They chat in a room full of cool Japanese action figure. Mitsutake wanted to make a live-action version of Go Nagai’s Devilman, but they changed. He came up with a new concept for Mitsutake to adapt to film in Lion-Girl. The interview is in Japanese with English subtitles.
The Making of Lion-Girl (59:58) starts with the drawings Go Nagai created for the movie along with the seed of the story. We get to see the equipment and crew used to create the film. Tori Griffith gets to have fun with the action scenes.
The Hollywood Premiere Screening (31:27) with Director and Cast Q&A took place at the Arena Cinelounge. Director Kurando Mitsutake talks about the importance of Go Nagai’s work. Actress Tori Griffith is happy to get to see the film after all the effects and compositing. Postproduction took a while. Mitsutake considers this a traditional ’80s exploitation movie.
Trailer (1:58) shows how after a meteorite attack on Earth how humanity survived and dealt with other issues.
Sideshow (2:05) includes press photos, premier pictures,
Trailer Gallery for Shin Ultraman, Escape From Area 51, The Rift, Devil’s Revenge and Life After Flash.
Cleopatra Entertainment presents Lion-Girl. Directed by Kurando Mitsutake. Screenplay by Kurando Mitsutake. Starring Derek Mears, Julie Burrise, Stefanie Estes, David Sakurai, Shelby Lee Parks, Tori Griffith, Hidetoshi Imura, Kristina Korsholm, Kirk Geiger, Terra Strong, Wes Armstrong, Taishi Tamaki, Akihiro Kitamura, Marianne Bourg, Holgie Forrester & Damian Toofeek Raven. Running Time: 122 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: November 7, 2023.
