Savior of the Earth (snark)

Been thinking about nitpicking another fake Korean anime movie for a while now. What could possibly be a better choice than the one that’s artistically desperate enough to rip off TRON?

 

We open on a rant from a guy standing on a rooftop somewhere in the middle of an appropriately dramatic blustery storm. He’s invented some kind of form of energy that can control all the computers in the world, evidently, and is presumably demonstrated by a ring of energy that wobbles around while he talks.

This evildoer is shown causing chaos, mostly by making cars and planes crash.

Ah yes, New York. That place where the steering wheel's always on the right hand side.

 

People are so desperate for answers from some scientist they bodily shove his secretary into the air.

 

Holy crap. This movie’s gonna be an amazing shitshow.

A guy in a bowtie and sweater vest is also distraught, and demands they find “Dr. Kim” to get answers. Who can blame him when the directing’s gotten so bad there’s an airliner in outer space?

 

This Dr. Kim’s the same scientist with the flung secretary, except now he has glasses and a French accent, which is probably just the movie being so cheap they’re recycling character designs already. I was right. Amazing shitshow.

 

He and his two bizarrely youthful assistants get off a helicopter, and he makes the guy carry the big suitcase for forgetting to get it in the first place. Dr. Kim meets Bowtie Sweater Vest Man, and talks about their golf scores despite the world descending into madness.

This segues into them talking about a colleague named Dr. Butler who’s getting weird and doesn’t play golf with them anymore, and who I’m betting is the mad genius behind the computer chaos. Guess they were worried their own movie was so incoherent, there needed to be that scene at the beginning so we'd know a suspicious scientist was the villain.

Sleazy Male Bizarrely Youthful Assistant tries to ask out Tsundere Bizarrely Youthful Assistant at work (ECON, like discount ENCOM, ha ha ha), only to be harshly shut down. To add insult to injury, Dr. Kim catches him playing Space Invaders on duty. Dr. Kim’s so fed up he sends Sleazy Male Bizarrely Youthful Assistant off to just play video games and get out of what remains of his hair.

 

Then the Americans and the Soviets fire missiles at each other based on some sus data apparently planted by Dr. Butler’s computer, which leads to a UN meeting where an irate bald man thumps the table with his shoe. And another delegate seriously using the word “scoundrels”.

 

Dr. Kim and Bowtie Sweater Vest Man are also at the meeting and realize, out of nowhere, Dr. Butler may be behind all the computer chicanery.

They go to his house and find his body hooked up to this big computer. Dr. Kim divines that Butler’s uploaded his brain. Or rather, “Butler has entered the computer world through this electric current over here”.

By jumping through a window.

Dr. Butler announces his demand that he is the world’s new leader because of his powers, but we hear this from a tape Dr. Kim’s playing. Not an announcement Butler’s making himself, which is really weird. Maybe he was waiting until later, because then the ECG monitor, I mean, computer sucks Dr. Kim inside because he knows too much, but this ain’t my first terrible Korean ripoff anime. Tight plotting is the last thing you can accuse them of.

 

The Bizarrely Youthful Assistants get a call asking for Dr. Kim, and we find out the guy’s name is Keith. That’s a relief. I was afraid I’d have to call him Sleazy Male Bizarrely Youthful Assistant for the whole rest of the review. Some of these ripoff anime are even worse at naming their main characters than they are at plotting. He goes to find Dr. Kim when Tsundere Bizarrely Youthful Assistant becomes despondent from breaking her pencil on her typewriter, but then says he was just fucking around and he’s actually going to the arcade. This total lack of responsibility saves Keith when Tsundere Female Assistant (Sheila) goes instead and gets sucked into the ECG monitor too.

 

Not for long, granted, because Sark decides they’re tired of Keith always blowing them up when he games, and sucks him inside the game to see how he likes it. Yeah, there’s a world where video games are real with no explanation whatsoever. Like the fairytale kingdom with castles and elves and ice cream rivers inside someone’s body in Diatron-5.

 

Looks like they even ripped this off, probably from a street vendor's LCD game.

Yeah, I’m just calling the bad guy Sark. Like I said, these Korean ripoff anime are bad at naming their characters, and half the time the audio’s so bad I’m not sure what they said anyway. I seriously don't remember if they ever mentioned this character's name.

 

Anyway, Keith blinks and suddenly he’s inside the game. He crashes his spaceship and then even more inexplicably he’s suddenly still alive in a room full of robots who sentence him to play video games, because apparently he’s “capable of inflicting severe damage on the game circuit, and overspending our computer energy. Not to mention making fun of our computers.” Holy crap, this really is turning into the most amazing thing I’ve seen in a long time.

 

Sark’s buddies appear to have similar grudges against quite a few other gamers, when we see a recreation of the “identity disc” scene where he addresses the prisoners. 

There’s no technical info in this movie’s version, just threats that they’ll be stuck in these games until they die playing them, and anyone who tries to get away gets whipped by Sark’s henchman, Black John.

 

Yes, really.

Then we see the games, like the jai alai one from the movie.

 

And an "original" one where the prisoners get chased by Pac-Man. I guess that’s fair game, since Pac-Man exists in the computer world of TRON, after all.

 

Keith adapts quickly, which I guess is fair too. He had a date of 999,999,999, you know.

 

Yeah, all of this movie's research on video games was done on that street LCD game, wasn't it?

Following some more game carnage, Keith steals a guard’s zappy stick and Spider-Man climbs a sheer wall to escape, pursued by Black John.

 

He runs into Sheila, who along with Dr. Kim are being coerced into working on an “energy vessel” to make Butler’s control absolute. I think. It isn’t super clear. Sorta like how Tron's girlfriend was helping to make the ship they steal later, though. That I am sure about.

 Sheila tells Keith. how to escape from the game zone by turning when he sees “an obstacle”, but they’re caught by Black John, who knocks Keith out.

Black John requests the right to be Keith’s opponent in a “rabbit hunting game”. Weird, a navy captain used that exact same analogy during the initial chaos part of the movie. Or, probably weak translation. Sark agrees so the movie can proceed, and Black John and Keith drive out on a virtual highway (fortunately, not a Virtual Hydlide).

A sexy space pirate captaining a very Leiji Matsumoto-style spaceship tries to blow up the bridge the two are driving over for some reason, but they escape and drive into a desert. Because this place has a desert, apparently.

 

Keith and Black John get thirsty and crawl to an oasis, where they seem to recognize each other as kindred spirits. Some robots capture them. And this place not only has a desert, it has a desert fortress with a half-wrecked Tokyo Tower sticking out of it.

 

Yeah, right, an oasis, because remember that scene?

 

The weird little robot girl who runs this place falls in love with Keith, but gets offended why he asks why she doesn’t have a nose. He tells her he can’t stay because people are waiting for him in the human world, and she says he shouldn’t tell lies like that. I believe her about Keith.

 

And thanks to bad animation Keith suddenly has four hands.

 

Eventually robot girl gives Keith a weird striped saucer, because “It’s dangerous to go alone, take this back to the computer world with nothing.” He’ll need a weapon when he goes back to rescue the others, and of course it’s the signature weapon from TRON.

Robot girl (Sandy) calls “Master Anne”, the space pirate lady from before, to ask for help. Apparently she and robot girl are sisters?! Nope, even watching this without it being cut the hell down to be part of Space Thunder Kids doesn't help. Although understandably not impressed by Keith, Master Anne agrees to help thwart Dr. Butler out of loyalty to Sandy.

 

Paging Buichi Terasawa's lawyer!

Well said, Cobra.

 

Robot girl’s robot minions, Keith and Black John invade Dr. Butler and Sark’s headquarters. Robot girl’s robot minions aren’t very good and flee at the first hint of pain.

 

Meanwhile, Keith finds his way into Sark’s office and after a lot of repeated shots of discs being thrown and blocked, kills Sark by breaking his disc and his forehead. Just like in the real movie.

 

Lamely, Sark just disintegrates into smoke instead of getting giant.

Meanwhile, Butler’s wireframe ship has cruised out to do…whatever it is he’s planning to do. I honestly don’t know at this point. Keith, Black John and an offscreen-rescued Sheila steal another ship  and fly along a laser to chase their enemy.

 

Yeah because remember that?

Wonder what real anime this is from.

Meanwhile, Master Anne intercepts Butler’s ship and fires at him several times, but her shots don’t do anything and he basically just ignores her.

 

Butler calls Sheila’s ship while Keith and Black John hide (I think she’s supposed to be bringing some component he left part without). Butler sees the stowaways, though, and shoots a beam backward at them.

In between it being launched and hitting the good guys’ ship, there's time for a scene where Master Anne confronts Keith and his buddies and refuses to help them and leaves. Really slow laser, huh?

(By the way, they don't actually keep calling her Master Anne. I just thought that was weird and decided to keep doing it. You can't tell me it's not in the spirit of the movie.)

 

 

Fortunately Black John redirects the laser with his arms like Flynn did, except it kills him in this movie. He has visions of wheat farms before expiring.

Meanwhile, Dr. Butler’s ship has reached its destination of the MCP’s base. Dr. Kim and some other elderly scientists are brought out and the robot minions start pelting them with plumbing supplies.

 

Keith and Sheila catch up to them, and although Keith lays about with his frisbee of death, he’s dogpiled by the robot minions. All seems lost until Master Anne’s ship flies in, having conveniently changed her mind, and equally conveniently this time her shots are so damaging the previously indestructible wireframe ship’s completely destroyed.

 

Keith throws his frisbee at Dr. Butler’s monitor, and he dies.

 

Then the base explodes so hard Dr. Kim and Sheila are blown back into the real world.

 

Not Keith, but no big loss there.

Going full tsundere, Sheila even gets uppity, thinking Keith decided to stay in the computer world, because he had it so good with Sandy (!!!). Until she suddenly thinks of where he must be and runs off.

 

Whatever her guess was, it seems Sheila was wrong, because Keith’s in a nighttime desert. He isn’t picked up by Jawas to be sold into slavery, unfortunately, but falls down a cliff and lands next to a racecar just sitting there. Oh, and suddenly it's day.

 

Boy, I sure am glad to be home safe and sound here in NEW YORK.

After driving for a little bit he runs into crashing cars, and suddenly Sheila taps Keith on the shoulder and he’s sitting in an arcade, playing a racing game.

 

Any joy at their reunion is quickly quashed when she tsunderes out again and slaps him for having the audacity to touch her shoulder.

 

This movie's so inane, playing Arkanoid almost would make more sense.

Dr. Kim and Sheila walk away, talking about plans to get Chinese together. David just saunters in their general direction in dejection, clutching his wounded pride. Gotta admit, I actually do kinda feel for Keith on that one. Saved two universes, and it's the irascible scientist who didn't even do anything that gets the girl.

 

And that’s pretty much it.

 

IT'S OVER!!

Truly one of the most deliciously stupid things I've ever seen, and a new Top 10 entrant in my list of best bad movies.