Sky High

As with many of Ryuhei Kitamura's film, Sky High displays plenty of great ideas (a serial killer ripping people's hearts out, the gates of Rage, where murdered people go and are given three choice - heaven, earth, or hell), an genre bending story (sword play, horror, sci-fi, love story, serial killer) and plenty of visual style. However, Sky High also fall foul of Ryuhei Kitamura's usual faults. For this type of film, and the way it is shot, it is just too long, running at over two hours. Kitamura tries to give the story depth and meaning (failing most the time), when it should be a great popcorn flick with less depth. Take his two major success - Versus and Azumi. Here there is very little plot, just great action. Alive, another of Kitamura's films, which is very similarly themed to Sky High, also suffers these faults. Given the right script, Kitamura will make a genuinely great film (he almost did it with Versus), but until then, he need someone to come and cut his film down.