Production
The film is loosely based on a 1973 anime television series, Shinzō Ningen Kyashān (translated as "Neo-Human Casshern" and known as just Casshan in the United States) from animation studio Tatsunoko Productions. Along with contemporary films Able Edwards, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Immortal, and Sin City, it was among the first feature-length live action films to be shot on a digital backlot, with the actors performing in front of a greenscreen and all but the simplest stage elements added digitally after the fact.
As well as being influenced by Shakespeare's Hamlet, director Kazuaki Kiriya states that he drew upon Russian Avant-Garde for visual inspiration.
European influences are also shown in the battles and some stage settings that are designed to resemble the World War II Nazis. The first robot battles, however, were less performed by the original cast, and more by the Euro-Japanese duo of stunts and choreographers, Orinosuke Funakoshi (オリノスケ フナコシ) and Motoori Chinatsu (チナツ モトオリ), thus making the feature more influenced by mixed history of European part of the world. The set also features vast number of Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Bosnian writings, calling out for peace, hence holding a unified message of people who were devastated with civil wars post WWII.
According to Kiriya, in an interview with Joblo, it took two months to shoot the film and a further six months of post-production work. The film's look was achieved through a combination of means, from CGI (supervised by Haruhiko Shono), matte paintings to even Kiriya's heavy involvement with the cinematography.
The Japanese release contains a 6.1 channel soundtrack (Dolby Digital 5.1 on the PAL Region 2 release) and English subtitles.
The theme song, "Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro", was written and sung by the director's ex-wife, pop singer Hikaru Utada.
Read more about this topic: Casshern (film)
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