Kamikaze 1989

1982 "Ninety-Six Hours to Crack His Last Case ...His Time's Already Up!"
5.8| 1h46m| en| More Info
Released: 16 July 1982 Released
Producted By: Regina Ziegler Filmproduktion
Country: Germany
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

In a totalitarian society of the future, in which the government controls all facets of the media, a homicide detective investigates a string of bombings, and finds out more than he bargained for.

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Reviews

Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch
Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Thy Davideth I came into this movie with an open mind because I knew the chances of this movie being an authentic Cyberpunk film was minimal. Boy did this movie suck my prostate clean. It was boring, unimaginative, pseudo- intellectual and above all, GAY! To call this movie Cyberpunk is like calling Friday The 13th a romance movie. It is misleading and stupid. Either that or the morons who think this is CyberPunk haven't the faintest idea WHAT CyberPunk is. In either case this movie IS NOT recommended AT ALL unless you like self indulged, tedious crap!!
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Kamikaze 1989" is a German movie from 1982, so this one has its 35th anniversary this year. The director is Wolf Gremm and he is also among the writers who adapted the novel for the screen here. The outcome is a 105-minute movie in the German language. The lead actor is famous German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder and this is actually his last performance of an actor before his untimely death. Fittingly, the cast also includes many actors who have appeared on several occasions in Fassbinder's films, such as Mira or Kaufmann. I already wrote that this movie is from 1982 and the events it depicts are actually a vision of the future of what the year 1989 may look like. A touch of "Clockwork Orange" you will find in here for sure, even if the focus is on the "good" side of the law this time. Fassbinder's character is a police officer dealing with a bomb threat that may be legit or just a prank. It all has to do with the governing institution that is apparently very powerful and has their very own ways to make sure things stay the way they are. You could certainly characterize this film as shrill here. The sets, but even more so the costumes are really extremely over the top, but it feels all intended and it adds a decent little atmosphere to the entire project.But unfortunately, the story cannot deliver beyond all the bright and colorful characters in here. The story about the crime becomes ultimately forgettable in the face of it being just one absurd scene chasing the next. And sadly, these aforementioned characters rarely have more than two scenes, which results in them becoming ultimately mostly forgettable as the moment they may have depth they are recycled for the next wave of characters. Except Fassbinder of course, who is in this for every scene from start to finish. As a consequence, the film also feels very Fassbinder, for example during the scene when the woman invites him to her place and also the entire scene at her place then. Anyway, I personally was relatively underwhelmed and I would call this a piece of style over substance. I still think Fassbinder is at least as good of an actor as he is of a writer and director and he shows it here. There are moments when his line delivery comes off a bit wooden, but it still works somehow. He is the least of problems this film has, even if I found it pretty sad to see him like this. His looks make clear that something is very wrong with him and his health and it was a bit of a depressing watch because of this, even if his acting was certainly one of the very few okay aspects about this movie. But overall, it is just not enough, especially in terms of the script which sacrifices coherency in its desperate and unsuccessful attempts to be as bold and mesmerizing as possible. Don't watch.
Michael J Salmestrelli (vonnoosh) This film comes across as a very ambitious project. It features Rainer Werner Fassbinder (only acting, he has no creative role in the project beyond that as far as I can tell) in the lead. It has appearances by Franco Nero and Brigitte Mira. Co starring is early Fassbinder regular Gunther Kaufman. The point is, the cast is pretty damn good.The soundtrack is entirely original and is penned by Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream. I am assuming that was not cheap for the producers to arrange.With a good cast, good soundtrack, you have what appears to be a good futuristic sci fi script. An antihero cop and his partner are called in to organize an evacuation of the building for the most important corporation in the country (or world, was a little fuzzy of how far it reached). The bomb threat turns out to be a hoax, then things get twisted and confusing. I'd describe the story has having half devils battling half angels except you can't tell if they are fighting themselves or there really is a certain opposition. The film ends with major events not appearing on film. In fact, the film feels like it's missing most of the third act before coming to an abrupt conclusion. You sort of have closure during the very end but the exposition is coming from a news broadcast. It could have been thrown on in post production just to save the project and get it rushed to release in time to still cash in on the international success of Blade runner (both are futuristic sci fi stories but Blade Runner debuted a month before this), or perhaps to capitalize on the untimely death of Fassbinder who died unexpectedly 6 weeks before this film was released.Regardless of the reasons, you get what might have been a complex story, well acted and brought to life via an interesting plot and without the need for cheap special effects. Alas, you get the pretense of a good story and are stuck trying to piece together the events in the second and third acts. It's a chore.I've watched this several times. I, like most I imagine, was drawn to this movie if only to see the type of film project Fassbinder would simply act in without much more creative input. The film looked like it was trying to follow the same approach of Fassbinder sci fi experiments like World on a Wire. Maybe if Kamikaze '89 were almost three and a half hours long to explain what the heck is happening like World On A Wire is then perhaps things would be different. Instead, good luck with the 106 minutes you get.
tilapia First of all, this is an incredible bad film. Before I saw it, I to believed that anything Fassbinder touched would turn out to be pure works of genius. You are reading the comments of a very disillusioned man. Kamikaze -89 is ugly, stupid and impossible to take seriously. It shoots at a million different directions, but fails to hit anything but its own feet. After 100 minutes in the company of Kamikaze -89, my brain started hurting.That said, it's not a complete waste of time. Seeing a pi***ed, drunk out of his mind, Fassbinder strousing around in leopard outfit, like a wounded walrus, DOES have its perverse charm. In fact, seeing Fassbinder and some of his regulars degrade themselves in this totally psychotronic film is the only thing that makes it somewhat worthwhile.The story takes place in the near future... 1989 to be specific. Everybody wears the ugliest new wave outfits on this side of Culture Club and Germany has become the most advanced and powerful country in the world. All social and political problems have been solved and everybody is happy. Or so it seems. The state of Germany have but one enemy, a person or organization called Krystopompas (!), who believes that the people of Germany has become pacified and dehumanized by the regime. He starts giving bomb threats, and the state of Germany puts their best man on the case, police lieutenant Jansen (Fassbinder in a leopard suite). Then a lot of nonsense takes place. People start pointing fingers at Jansen, yelling "Krystopompas!" for no apparent reason. Jansen goes to a strip-joint where everybody is laughing hysterically for no apparent reason. Lots of other nonsense follows. And then the film takes some awful 1984-inspired turns and mysterious conspiracies like "The blue panther", "unexpected deaths" and "the 31st Floor" become visible. Needless to say, Fassbinder somehow cracks the case and then he screws a picture of an astronaut. The end.A must-see!