Set fifty years after a devastating war which saw the Eastern Federation defeat Europa civilisation is still in ruins. Rebels are still fighting and the world is heavily polluted. Dr Azuma announces that he has found a way to regenerate any human organ using 'neo-cells'. While his research goes ahead his son is killed fighting in the army. Something goes wrong when lightning strikes the laboratory; it creates entire people; so called Neo-Sapiens. Those who escape kidnap Dr Azuma's wife and flee to the mountains. Meanwhile Dr Azuma uses his research to bring his son Tetsuya back to life. He is no longer an ordinary person though; he now has superhuman strength. It isn't long before the Neo Sapiens have built a robot army and are trying to wipe out humanity and Tetsuya is leading the fight to stop them.It must be said that this film looks great; it has a CGI-steampunk aesthetic and frequently looks like a pop video might be like if it had been directed by Fritz Lang. Unfortunately it is also a bit of a mess plot wise; at time it felt as if the makers thought up something that would look great without necessarily being able to explain why it was happening. The basic story is solid but the way it was told frequently left me a little confused about what was going on. I can't say how it compares to the original anime as I've not seen it; only 'Casshern Sins' that was made after this and is quite different. I'd recommend this to fans of the genre but wouldn't call it a must see.These comments are based on watching the film in Japanese with English subtitles.

Too be quite honest I have no real idea what this movie is about, though to be fair LSD probably has a hand to play in this, as i was tripping balls when viewing. Personally I found quite a few flaws in the movie especially concerning this societies purely robot based economy, as (spoiler alert) there output of mechs and other assorted killbots was clearly reeking havoc on the environment and people as a whole. I was constantly forced to put reality aside as any attempt to understand the logistics of fielding literally tens of thousands of robots would be daunting to say the least, not to mention the support staff to maintain and sheer nation sized industrial base to produce these monstrosities of death to send in endless mechanical waves of destruction against one man, only to fail. It's mind boggling, there was almost a sense of fatalism in there culture as a whole for the most likely sensed no matter how much they toiled day and night the veritable chariots of wanton chaos would quickly be torn asunder by a lone man with excellently qouffed bangs. In fact the only two things that seemed to matter in this world were making more robots to push into the destructive void of destinies gaping maw and keeping a retinue of hairstylists at hand constantly so as to look good whilst doing that.So in summation if your into questioning both the gender of antagonists and your life choices all set too the backdrop of constant robotic duels...though this movie will always stay with me, we chose after view to send the DVD on its way to the netherworld like Viking heroes of old and fittingly blew it into the void with a set of mortar shells.

In a nutshell--don't waste your precious time. There's plenty of interesting imagery in this movie but little else. More like watching a very long video game. The film goes from super fast anime style action with editing so rapid that you can't even be sure of what you are seeing(complete with speed lines flowing from the fast moving characters) to long meaningless speeches where characters face off verbally in cavernous rooms. There are robot armies that look as though they were borrowed from the George Pal Puppetoon screwball armies. The symbol used by the one faction calling themselves "neo-sapiens" is a cross between a swastika and a 45 RPM record spindle adapter. The one army uses Nazi style helmets and uniforms. There's a touch of Jesus and the three wise men imagery tossed in, as well. It's a hodge podge of images combined to trigger various emotions within you but when you actually examine the story, you realize there's nothing to examine but a collection of interesting pictures.

First off, I found this film to be the best movie I've seen in my life, I'm not a Japanese fan of some sort, I'm just the movie-watching guy who likes cinema. I went into this film expecting to watch amazing battles and visual effects that would blow my mind, and indeed I found them, but I came up realizing it was much more than just that, but a film that encompasses every aspect of war, and not just that but also about human behavior and a theory on the creation of life. The film combines everything: action, drama, beautiful photography, Sci-Fi and a solid storyline you must watch several times to fully understand this marvel of film.The best movie I've seen in my entire life...a film that will stay in your mind forever, 'cause if Casshern doesn't do it, who will?