K-20: Kaijin Niju Menso Den

aka K-20: The Legend of the Mask.

I got it today via DVD. I just finished it.

In short: brilliant.

This is what a modern pulp movie should be.

Set in 1949 in a fictional Japan that made peace with the United States in World War II (and was thus not the target of two atomic bombings), the story centers around a circus acrobat named Heikichi Endo (played by Takashi Kaneshiro, of Returner and House of Flying Daggers fame, and more recently of Red Cliff).

Endo is framed for the crimes of the notorious K-20, a master thief also known as the demon of 20 faces. He's arrested and set for bad things in his life when some thief friends free him. He trains himself in thief techniques to try to catch K-20 (essentially learning parkour and how to become a post WWII James Bond). While training, he accidentally rescues the wealthy Yoko Hashiba (Takako Matsu) from the real K-20.

It gets complicated, as Yoko is engaged to the master detective Kogoro Akechi (Tôru Nakamura) who is K-20's arch-enemy and is currently hunting Endo.

There's more to it, of course. There's a super-device invented by Nikolai Tesla (which is always good for a charge) and lots of absurd disguises (think "Mission Impossible" masks... all over the damn place). Oh, and Endo is almost a Japanese Spider-Man with the weird devices his buddies make him.

It's a fun romp. The acting is what one would expect. The setting and effects are rock solid.

I loved it.

I highly recommend it, if you can get a copy. I picked up a Hong Kong version (with surprisingly good English subtitles) via YesAsia.

Good times. Gotta love Tesla devices.