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Sky High Actor: Yumiko Shaku Number of Items: 1 Format: Color Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Studio: Media Blasters, Inc Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2005-03-29 Buy from Amazon

From Description Sky High, based on the manga by Tsutomu Takahashi (Alive), follows detective Kanzaki Kohei’s vengeful search for the killer who stole his wife’s heartafter cutting it out on their wedding night. The deceased Mina finds hersel fin LIMBO outside the gates of Heaven and Hell where she is greeted by Izuko, a sworded female guardian who explains she must choose among one of three paths: she may enter and await reincarnation in Heaven, she may remain upon the earth as a wandering spirit, or she may haunt and torment her murderer, the price of which will be eternity in Hell. With twelve days to decide, she hovers over the now obsessed Kanzaki as he hunts desperately for Mina's killer, who uses living hearts in an attempt to resurrect the devil in a bid to revive his own lost beloved from her limbo between life and death.

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 "Why can't the US make movies like this!?" This movie is basically a blend of Kill Bill+Gone With the Wind+ Se7en all mixed up to produce one of the best Romance/Action/ Adventure/ Fantasy/ Horror movies you can imagine, if you can imagine all of those rolled into one! Unlike some movies this one will give the girlfriend or wife the romance and fantasy while the boyfriend or husband all the action and adventure he can handle! "Are they on drugs?!" Must be, because this story is so full of mystic nonsense, like the sort that was present at Woodstock in 1969, just even more far out and strange then ever.It's total nonsense, You would have to be smoking weed to understand it, Maybe the animators were when they made this shoalck. "This is a great film, but not for everybody." This film is a very spiritualistic, very romantic, but very violent film. The "love & good triumphs over evil" message is again translated in the most unusual way that I've ever seen. It has not shaken my spiritual values, but has maybe enhanced them. Many fellow christians may not see it this way, and will have a closed mind about the film (in regard to the 3 choices at the gate). That plus the violence (fairly graphic in some scenes including anatomically corect beating hearts), will definately turn them off. Not to mention the references about the book of the dead, and the evil connotations suggested (let's face it, to make it a film about "good vs. evil", you need the evil. "Lord of the Rings" was the ring, "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" was the Snow Queen, etc.). To me the message of good triumphing over evil was the main theme, and the hope of real love and being loved, and isn't that what true christianity is all about? This is not a story about the realities of what the after life is going to be about after we die. It's a fantasy about the afterlife (much in the same way that Beetlejuice was). If anybody were to honestly watch this film and say, "This is what the afterlife is about", I would suggest that they should seek spiritual, or psychiatric help (or both). Even though it was very beautiful, and thought provoking, it was also extremely violent (not as bad as, let's say for example, "Kill Bill", but still very violent (and remember, I have the uncensored Japaneese import of "Kill Bill")). It's a good story line, and (if you can handle the violence) is well worth the watch. Also keep in mind. This movie was rated "R". It didn't receive this raiting for nothing. This is not a "kiddie" film. "The Fault Lies in the Acting" I found this movie on a shelf in Blockbuster, and being a fan of Sci-fi movies, as well as good Japanese imports, I rented the flick because the premise sounded promising: a girl is murdered and has to choose between going to Heaven, becoming a ghost, or cursing one person on Earth to death, and then going to Hell herself. Not a bad idea for a story at all. And it really isn't what's wrong with this movie. In fact, I loved the cleverness and originality of the story: the options of the murdered, the intriguing guardian of the gate of rage, an evil CEO set about completing a ritual to bring about an evil demon, all in order to resurrect his dead wife. The characters were interesting, and the villains had the potential for sympathy, something that is rare in sci-fi type movies. This has all the makings for a great movie. And its downfall was the...actual movie. I watched the subtitled version, and while the acting from the main character, her fiancé, and the guardian Izuko was tolerable, the horribly over-acted villainy of the evil CEO and his lovely minion ruined it for me. Ruined! These were villains ripe with potential for sympathy--their actions, terrible as they were, were motivated by love, and thus understandable, if not justifiable. But they were played with such cartoon maliciousness, complete with evil laughs and generic one-liners, that the effectiveness of the characters was nullified. The action scenes also left a LOT to be desired. They were all fought in real-time, no stylish camera tricks here, and were very OBVIOUSLY choreographed. The actors moved slowly and with deliberate care, like amateur dancers trying to remember the steps to the tango. The action scenes were horribly contrived and staged so that you could just tell they were going for cool moves and one-shot "poses", and didn't care how the rest of the fight looked, as long as they got those cool moments, say where two of the sword fighting women were moving in unison, and locked blades in mirroring poses. The second-to-last fight scene between the evil minion and the priestess was by far the most natural looking one, but even that fell far short of "par" for most action movies. This movie was very aesthetically beautiful, almost amusingly so (you apparently won't find anything but stunningly beautiful 20-something women in Tokyo. Women over the age of thirty are apparently sent to different parts of the country ;) ), but the driving force of the movie--it's action scenes and cast--sadly fall short. I have since read the two manga series this movie is based on, and with the material at hand, I think they could have done a lot better. This was a disappointing film that I really wouldn't recommend. "Effective, offbeat fantasy" Hearing of a comic superhero movie coming out called Sky High, I actually noticed that there was another movie with the same title; my interest piqued, I picked up this clever Japanese movie about a killer who steals people's hearts. At first, this seems like one of those standard killer flicks. The main character is a cop whose fiancee is killed on the day of their wedding. Soon, however, the story takes a sharp turn, as we follow the spirit of the girl who faces some interesting choices in the afterlife and will play a role in stopping the killer. Although slightly similar to Ghost, Sky High is also stands by itself in certain respects. It is not a mystery as the killer is revealed relatively early on, but the agenda behind these murders is not mere psychosis. Instead, it is part of a ritual that threatens to unleash Hell on Earth and in the process bring the principal villain's wife back from death. This is not a perfect movie; the dialogue (or at least the dubbed English) is sometimes rather stiff and the action scenes are not very exceptional; on the other hand, some nice sets and clever plotting helps elevate this to a four star movie. While often relying on devices established on other movies, Sky High does have enough of its own unique elements to make this worth watching.