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Alive - Director's Cut Edition Director: Ryuhei Kitamura Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2004-10-26 Buy from Amazon

From Description Based on a popular comic book by Tsutomu Takahashi (SKY HIGH), ALIVE combines the tension of Vincenzo Natali's CUBE and Kitamura's own VERSUS. For the brutal murder of his girlfriend's rapists, Tenshu is sentenced to die in the electric chair. Miraculously surviving the high voltage punishment he is given the choice to burn again, or take part in a vicious experiment pitting him against another prisoner/guinea pig and a destructive alien life force.

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.0 "Huh???? what happened!!!" ... this movie started out with an interesting story but falls apart after the girl is introduced as stated by the previous reviewer. Very good start but falls to pieces by the end. On the positive side the effects are amazing. Blows away anything you'll see in any Matrix film. The cinematography is also top notch! With a strong enough plot this would have made an amazing movie. "Don't let the detractors fool you" Alive is a film based on a Manga and, as any anime fan will tell you, Manga doesnt always translate to other mediums smoothly. The film asks the viewer to accept an ever increasingly surreal set of circumstances so that, by the end, you are eseentially watching a cartoon. Many people will be automatically thrown out of their comfort zones when the more sci-fi/fantasy elements are introduced, but by the time they arrive you're pretty much willing to go with it just to see what happens. I liked following the main charecter, a man who has essentially done nothing morally "wrong" but is still punishing himself not for what he did as much as for what he couldn't do. They contrast the charecter nicely with the more up-front insanity of his cell mate and the cold indifference of the scientists and government officials running the experiment. By the time the end of the movie comes about, all bets are off, and you're just in it for the fun of watching two powerful creatures duke it out. The film is extremely well shot with an interesting look. The directors cut features a solidly different visual experiance than the theatrical cut (also offered)and is a real treat to watch. The Japanese sensibility in filmaking is vastly different than the American idea, so there is a period of adjustment before you can get into any Japanese film. IF you can master this shift theough, you are in for a real treat with this film "One of a kind." Some movies can be compared to other movies but this stands alone. This runs along the lines of a pure thriller, a poke into the human mind, "how much can you take?" If your looking for somthing along the lines of "The Cell" and "Se7en" rent this before you buy it! ""Alive" is brain dead!" This movie started off interesting enough. A man murders the gang that raped his girlfriend and is placed in the electric chair. When the voltage fails to kill him, he is given the option to live or to be fried again. He chooses life. Enter storyline #2. He is put into what seems to be a "Cube" type experiment: locked in a metal room with a psychotic man who claims to have also escaped The Chair. It appears some government scientists are testing how long it will take these two to kill each other. But that's not it. Enter storyline #3. A beautiful woman appears to the men. It seems she is the host for an alien entity that her father contracted from eating a baboon that visited a spaceship in the jungle (Oh, how I wish I were making that up!). The remainder of the film is a mess of Hell images, Kung-fu showdowns with cloned super-soldiers, and random shootings that make no earthly sense. Someone should have read the script for "Alive" and pronounced this film D.O.A. instead.