Pyrokinesis (2000)

Junko Aoki (Akiko Yada) works in the postal department of a Toho office (yes, she works for the studio that's producing the film you are watching - feel the meta), trying to keep her head down and stay as uninvolved with others as possible. The woman has some emotional problems you see. Ever since she was a child, she has had the ability to project and ignite fire, but also trouble controlling her powers once she has started using them. Also, strong feelings let her give off an immense heat, enough that she needs to run to next body of water to lose a little steam.

A person can't stay completely alone forever. She has developed a crush on her colleague Tada (Hideaki Ito). The slow starting romance between the two is unfortunately soon disrupted when a bunch of hooligans who are already responsible for a small string of murders, kills Tada's younger sister.

The police arrests Kogure (Hidenori Tokuyama), the ringleader of the bastards, but with the help of his ex-D.A. father and a phony accusation of police brutality, he's not even going on trial - his tendency to tell just about anyone of his guilt stretching my suspension of disbelief here really to the limit.

Tada wants to kill Kogure, but Junko prevents him ruining his life. She makes him the offer to kill "punish" Kogure and his gang for their murders with the help of her powers. That way, nobody will find out about the motive for the killings. At first, Tada agrees, yet when the moment comes he intervenes, overcome with the thought of the senselessness of revenge.

In the ensuing argument, he accuses Junko of not really wanting to help him, but just looking for an excuse for using her powers. She runs away, and that very consequently; she leaves her job and apartment behind and goes on the run.

Junko's flight turns out to be not that bad of an idea - two cops, the experienced female Ishizu (Kaori Momoi, quite excellent as policewoman with brain and heart - which gives her two organs on her colleagues) and the younger Makihara (Ryuuji Harada) who knows Junko from her childhood are on the case, and not as skeptical as one would expect.

It's at this point that the film slowly loses in quality when it introduces more young people with ESP powers and the conspiracy of a shadowy organization of evil vigilantes, turning an intimate piece into something that can end in an explosion.

Not that director Shusuke Kaneko wouldn't know what to do with explosions - we are talking about the man who made the three brilliant Gamera films of the 90s here - but I don't think Pyrokinesis is completely successful in its marriage of the intimate and the loud.

Part of the problem lies in the film's characters. While Junko and Ishizu are complex and complicated enough to be interesting as persons, the baddies of the film lack in even the slightest bit of complexity. There's no discernible motive for their actions besides them being movie villains, letting the film's tone shift the more into the realm of the shonen manga the longer they are on screen.

Another difficulty Kaneko can't overcome is a budgetary one. Although special effects and locations look as good (and in case of the effects: gruesome) as a low budget can possible allow, most of the acting is rather bland. Idol Akiko Yada does a surprisingly good job as Junko and Kaori Momoi's Ishizu is delightful (I don't think she's capable of doing a bad acting job), but the rest of the acting just isn't there to pick up some of the script's slack.

Still, Pyrokinesis is worth two hours of your time, at least for the subtle moments of its first hour and Kaneko's ambition to be complex and complicated, even if the film can't completely keep up with his ambitions.

 

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