Mood:
caffeinatedTopic: Comic Book Movies
TODAY'S FEATURE - Blog #3504:  (Vinnie) Hello everyone! Today I am reviewing the Anime DVD, "Hammerboy". It was produced in Korea by Tae Kun An. It's a great tale and is actually family friendly.  The suggested rating is 13 and up, but that is just because of one minor swear word. There is hardly any violence, and no blood or gore. I honestly would recommend it to anyone as long as they (or their child) are over the age of 5. It will most likely fly right over their heads as the guy says it and the scene changed. I don't really find it a big deal, as it's just a minor one that was focused on for a couple seconds, but it's the parents choice on whether or not they want their child to see it. My dad and I bought this movie, as well as a couple others, up at the Oceanside Collector's Con awhile ago to resell. My dad just couldn't take it upon himself to resell it because of the name, as he had grown up being called "Hammerman". He decided to keep it and to at some point watch, which ended up being just recently. We had nothing else we wanted to watch, it was too late to go to Redbox, and it was my choice of movie for the night, so I decided to pick it. I mainly wanted to see it because it sounded silly, and quite childish, so I had decided I wanted to view that for a change. The DVD was about a remote village trying to be rebuilt after a worldwide disaster struck. A young boy, Mangchi, armed with his trusty hammer, and the undiscovered power of the Echo, tries to save a princess that was shot down with her plane by a military group that has taken over her kingdom. He vows to help her restore her kingdom to it's rightful state and escape her captors. They travel a long way, have some difficulties and trouble with some people, but they eventually find the leader of this group, and fight him to win back her kingdom. All this time Mangchi has been training his Power of the Echo, in order to have a chance to fight the leader, as he also shares this power. They fight and fight, and eventually the evil forces lose, like always, and the kingdom has been restored. I honestly enjoyed this movie. It was a great tale, and was very action filled and adventurous. The art was actually fairly good. The characters looked good, and maintained the same looks, and everything was proportioned. The special effects used looked pretty good, and it added a nice feel to the movie. The story was very nice and one that I've not seen before. I liked that an enemy became an ally in the end, as it showed that he had some remorse still in his soul. I also enjoyed the fact that evil lost and the kingdom was restored, because justice should win almost all of the time. I also liked the fact that it was an older girl who was in trouble, and the young boy was the hero. I have rarely seen that the hero in a movie or book was a young child, which definitely changed it up a bit for me. The fact that he had such great power compared to the evil leader just amazed me as he had a lot less time to master the Power of the Echo. Some people may find it as a flaw in the story, I just found it to be that when the power is used for good, it's much stronger than when used for evil. I do not know if that's the message that the creator is trying to pass on, but it's the message that I got from it. Overall, I really enjoyed it despite being a little childish for me, but I honestly did. I give the Anime movie "Hammerboy" a VERY FINE PLUS (VF+), an 8.5 out of a 10.0 grade scale. It's a very good movie, and I recommend you get it. I'd personally look for it online as I have not seen it anywhere besides the one video guy at the con, who appeared to have several copies of closeouts for sale. ~Vinnie!
When checking out web pages for this blog to link to link to I found the following: Hammer Boy (Hammerboy) on Facebook Which was a reprint from Wikipedia. On that page I found that there was an additional description of what was in the original film, although neither Vinnie, Tina, nor I found on the DVD version: "...the movie has scenes where the Hammerboy's penis appears. Some people believe that makes the Korean anime have some "spectre" of Shotacon". So that is probably why the film was for PG-13 on some web pages for sale. Again, we didn't see this on the American version shown at the top right of this blog post. Just the one word that we looked at each other when it was uttered, as nowhere else in the film had that language been used! So, other than those two possible items, the film was one that all three of us enjoyed watching. And to think that it was based on a Korean graphic novel (manhwa)! And yes I did pick this DVD up because of the 'Hammerboy' title. My 'nickname' ever since high school has been 'Hammerman' or 'The Hammerman', so my initial interest was due to the name! ~ Michael Note: Vinnie makes it to as many conventions with me as he can. He collects the 'Amazing Spider-Man' comic book series, but is open to read other titles from publishers that print titles that are age appropriate for him. He also has been attending 'behind the scenes' events, such as the one he blogged about ht here: Vinnie's Special 'Look at The Captain Rochester Party for the Artists' at the recent 2010 Comic-Con International: San Diego! He really had fun meeting and having dinner with Sergio Aragones, Bob Burden, Scott Shaw! and others there at this exclusive after hours Comic-Con Party in San Diego! Also...If YOU liked Vinnie's guest review blog today, you may also enjoy reading Vinnie's other reviews on: Zombie Ranch #2, Yets! #2, The HTHGNP: Red Phones, The Strand Prophecy by JBB Winner, Stuff that Dreams Are Made of - The Mini-Comix, The Adventures of Faithboy #1, Mouse Guard: The Black Axe #2 of 6, Yogi Bear Film (DVD), Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock Vol 2 #1 of 3, Space Punks #2, Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock Vol 2 #2 of 3, Kleeman and Mike #1, Mortifera #3, Classics Illustrated #142 Abraham Lincoln - 8th Edition, 2011 FCBD Edition - Mouse Guard / Dark Crystal Flip Book, Fraggle Rock Volume 2 #3 of 3, Bear and Fox #2, Space Punks #1, The Daughters of Merlin #1, Sea Ghost #1, Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard #4 (of 4), Clutch Cargo DVD, The All New Super Friends Hour Season 1 DVD, The Ultimate Underdog Collection Volume 1, Planet Hulk, Coraline, Ponyo, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Sonic the Hedgehog TPB Vol 1, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, The Possum #1 comic book, Vinnie's Take on Berona's War: Field Guide, just to name a recent few!
BTW, You can 'follow' this Blog by clicking the 'Follow' Button at this NetworkedBlogs app! We currently have over 2,550 'Followers'! Thanks to ALL of YOU that have already clicked that button! And for those of YOU that haven't yet... I would appreciate it if YOU would!!! ~ Michael D Hamersky Note: My online 'Local' Comic Book Shop (LCBS), carries many different genres of comics, magazines, graphic novels, and comic con promotional items. Possibly even copies of the item that was reviewed here today...!If I have it... You can find it 'Under The Big Top Of Comics' at: ComicBooksCircus.com. If it isn't available in my online 'Local Comic Book Shop, (LCBS), then you may be able find it in my Amazon affiiate link, as seen here: Comics & Graphic Novels The screen display resolution is best seen at the setting of 1024 x 768 on your laptop or desktop computer. NOTE: All images and characters within this blog post are copyright and trademark their respective owners.
To mail printed items to us for possible review, send to: Make It So Marketing Inc., PO Box 130653, Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA  Also, if you are a Facebook member, I would have liked you to have sent me a 'Friend Request'. However, I have reached the maximum limit of 5,000 Facebook Friends and Fan pages in my network already, so I've added a New 'Facebook Fan Page' for myself so that even more of YOU can 'Like' what I am doing, and be interactive with me and others there. Here is the link to that 'Facebook Fan Page': Michael D Hamersky On Comics! Please click the 'Like' button on that page! |
(Michael) Thanks, Vinnie for the review blog today on this 2007 DVD that we watched together! 
My thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and the archived blog posts, now over 3,503 total posts in number! I do appreciate your continued reading and support of this Blog!
at Amazon!
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NOTE FROM THE BLOGGER:
The Cisco Kid? Yes, because as shown in the earlier blog #3492, (linked above), I mentioned that Leo Carrillo was 'Pancho', sidekick to the Cisco Kid, which is why I'm blogging about this Film Festival here. 
Two Line Synopsis: A former bootlegger is now the prosperous owner of a popular nightclub. A hustling promoter manages to pass off a young singer as the heir to a fortune and gets him booked at the club.
~Michael D Hamersky - who is asking you for your vote in the voting that is ENDING TONIGHT at The Shel Dorf Awards web site. I was nominated for 'Comic Blogger of the Year' on Monday, August 8th! While being honored to be nominated, I'd also like to win! The competition has some other good nominees for the same category I was nominated for, so I'm asking for your help on this!