From 1972 to 1974 there was an animated television series in Japan about a
giant robot called Mazinger Z. I'd never heard of it before today, so I can't
say much about it. The opening scenes of the episodes show the robot leaving
its underground lair and heading into battle against alien invaders.
The film follows a team of five employees from the Maeda Corporation, a
Japanese construction company. They want to design a real life version of
Mazinger Z's lair. They don't intend to build it, but their plans have to be
accurate enough to enable the construction, if it ever happened.
There are so many reasons why the film should be a failure, but the end result
is fascinating. Most of the film contains technical discussions about the
mechanical problems of creating the hangar. We see close-ups of blueprints,
and there are lengthy explanations why some solutions are better than others.
So much talking about technicalities ought to be boring, but somehow it
retained by attention throughout.
Today is the first day of an online Japanese film festival. There will be
three films a day for the next 10 days. I don't intend to watch all the films,
but I've picked a few that interest me.
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