Chainsaw Man: The Movie – Reze Arc **
Dir: Tatsuya Yoshihara. Featuring the voices of: Kikunosuke Toya, Reina Ueda, Tomori Kusunoki, Ai Fairouz. 100 mins. Cert: 15
Hot on the heels of last month’s Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle – confirmed this past weekend as the highest-grossing anime feature of all time – a big-screen outing for what, in manga terms, is a relative upstart: Tatsuki Fujimoto’s gore-soaked coming-of-age saga, first serialised in 2018. Standard critical guidance applies: what will doubtless be catnip for fans is likely to prove varyingly baffling for newcomers, arriving late to a frenetic game offering few chances for catch-up. The latter camp might, however, cling to the Hallowe’en-adjacent release date as a partial decryption device, for Fujimoto’s teenage hero Denji (voiced by Kikunosuke Toya) has a chainsaw-wielding demon squatting in his soul, suggesting the twin influences of Tobe Hooper and Shinya Tsukamoto.
The fallout from this will be, let’s say, exaggerated, but the underlying emotions remain legible, maybe even relatable. Dopey slacker Denji is here torn between two romantic prospects: notionally nice girl Makima, who appeals to his cultured side, and freckled, jade-eyed waitress Reze, who invites our boy to break into school after hours to skinny-dip. Here’s a gal to elevate your heartrate; pity she’s also hellbent on ripping Denji’s heart out. The artistry is undeniable: director Tatsuya Yoshihara and team sketch ultra-photorealistic urban environments, making it only more striking when Reza pulls a grenade-pin from her neck, exploding her earthly form, or a possessed Denji, bearing chainsaws for arms, launches a counterattack atop his shark familiar.
Before a final descent into exhausting citytrashing, its gleeful perversity is semi-interesting: what the success of these titles tells us is that there’s an audience whose desires aren’t currently being met by Western pencil-pushers. Man, is it male, though. From Denji’s frilly pink fantasies to the fact Reze becomes more pornographic in form the more demonic she gets, Yoshihara’s not shy about courting those who might have felt uniquely wronged by the opposite sex. “What a waste!,” poor, put-upon Denji sighs. “I just cut off a beautiful woman’s leg.” On the way out, I overheard a cheery Chainsaw Fan explaining such aggressive indelicacies to his female companion. “It’s intentionally jarring,” the young man insisted. “I got that,” his companion replied. “I just don’t think I liked it.”
Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
I’d say you don’t have to know / follow much story, or even know of any (romance) arc or much whatever, really; just sit back and await the expected=de rigueur battle color palette almost explode off the screen ‘segment’ : astonishingly spectacular in its utter absurdist surrealism – sorta like the transfixing mesmerising ‘astral-plane’ journey effect way back in ’68 ‘2001, Space Oddity’: as such beware (or ensure?!) being on ‘anything’ when it comes – plus see in cinema preferably BIGGEST possible you can. Astounding!
ReplyDeleteOne of the worst reviews I've ever read in my life. Completely lacking in objectivity and biased by some strange and flawed way of thinking, you failed to move even 1 cm away from your ideology to appreciate fundamental things, and instead presented it as a product for the “manosphere” that is tremendously biased and pathetic.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree; I'm not even sure if he made up that last sentence. Does that mean this critic thinks people who are involuntarily single are all heartless and malicious? Is this critic truly concerned for the involuntarily single, or is it labelling the involuntarily single? Does the moral value of this specific scene in the film relate to the overall performance of the film? In fact, the male lead's next line, "The female lead has grown her legs back, that's great," makes it completely unnecessary to discuss morality in this scene. Completely ridiculous.
DeletePatético, en cuanto menos. hay mejores maneras de llamar la atención, pero nunca creí que alguien podría poner en juego su carrera como critico "especializado" solo por atención.
ReplyDeleteLa verdad como critica a un producto audiovisual se queda corto. Mas bien solo una Opinión personal sin un ápice de conocimiento critico. Un berrinche sin mas y una forma gratuita de quitar prestigio a tu marca personal.
Una reseña que habla mas del critico que de la obra misma y la deja bien parada. Demostrando que el problema no es la obra.
atte. Pablo Macaya. T.
This review completely misses the point of Chainsaw Man. It reads less like thoughtful criticism and more like someone trying to shoehorn the film into their own ideological box. The critic seems incapable of separating their personal bias from the work itself, ignoring the film’s artistry, themes, and emotional nuance just to rant about “male audiences.” It’s lazy, condescending, and frankly embarrassing for someone claiming to analyze cinema. If you can’t look past your own agenda long enough to recognize the direction, animation, and storytelling that make Chainsaw Man unique, maybe film criticism isn’t for you.
ReplyDeleteThis guy should not be a critic. This review honestly reads like the writer skimmed Chainsaw Man with one eye closed and decided to moralize instead of analyze. He acknowledges the film’s artistry, then immediately buries it under pretentious hand-wringing about “male audiences” and “incel-friendly indelicacies,” as if every frame of Denji’s chaos exists purely to confirm some gender theory thesis. It’s clear he didn’t care to understand Fujimoto’s satire, the trauma behind Denji’s desires, or the emotional dissonance that defines this story. Instead of exploring why these moments exist, he just calls them problematic and moves on. That’s not criticism — that’s projection. When a critic spends more time psychoanalyzing fans than actually engaging with the art, it stops being about cinema and starts being about ego. Fittingly, he’s also the only critic so far who didn’t give the movie a positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes — which tells you everything you need to know. Maybe the real “chainsaw” here was the one he used to shred nuance out of his own review.
ReplyDeleteMike, I honestly don’t know what movie you watched, but it definitely wasn’t Chainsaw Man: The Movie – Reze Arc. Your review reads like you walked in already determined to hate it. You breeze past everything that makes it incredible — the direction, the emotion, the visual storytelling — just to spin it into some tired rant about “male audiences.” Nobody asked for a sociology lecture; people wanted real film insight.
ReplyDeleteIt’s like you missed every layer Fujimoto built into this story — the pain, the satire, the humanity — and reduced it to whatever moral angle fit your narrative. The result isn’t criticism; it’s a bad projection piece with a few buzzwords thrown in.
Honestly, Mike, do yourself a favor and rewatch the movie with both eyes open. Or better yet, take this review down and let someone who actually understands Chainsaw Man handle it.
This guy is an idiot for giving this film a 2/5. Never rate again after this. Most biased review ever.
ReplyDelete2/5???? Mike please step down from considering yourself a critic because it seems you can’t keep bias away from trying a new medium. You would have to be an idiot to give it that score. Assuming you gave that score I can also infer that you aren’t capable of understanding complex storytelling.
ReplyDeletefreckles??? reze??? did you write this with AI or 😭😭😭
ReplyDeleteLook, a review: https://www.slashfilm.com/2020861/chainsaw-man-the-movie-reze-arc-romance-before-sunrise-inspiration/
ReplyDeleteNgl Mike it’s too late to take this shit down Just retire💔😔✌️
ReplyDeleteImpressive work, Mike - truly. It takes real dedication to view a film almost exclusively through a forced gendered angle while gracefully sidestepping its actual themes. After sampling a few of your other reviews - especially the Bollywood ones - I’m starting to see a pattern. Let’s just say the nuance you’re reaching for seems to be located somewhere just out of reach. But points for consistency, I suppose.
ReplyDelete