Review | Film review: Tokyo Ghoul – grisly fantasy adapted from manga by Sui Ishida is bound by mainstream conventions
Starring Masataka Kubota as a shy college student turned half-ghoul forced to embraced his inhuman cravings, this ambitious film by director Kentaro Hagiwara offers something special before genre conventions take hold
2.5/5 stars
Tokyo Ghoul is an ambitious adaptation of Sui Ishida’s dark fantasy manga by first-time filmmaker Kentaro Hagiwara. It includes a number of intriguing elements from vampire lore and superhero mythology, as well as from Hitoshi Iwaaki’s Parasyte . It is a pity, then, that the director’s vision often feels at odds with the film’s more commercial obligations.
Tokyo Ghoul presents a world in which superhuman beings known as ghouls live among us. Possessing great strength, regenerative powers and retractable tentacle-like weapons, they can only survive on human flesh (and coffee), so are greatly feared by those aware of their existence.
Into this world stumbles Kaneki (Masataka Kubota), a shy, orphaned college student who survives a ghoul attack only after some of his assailant’s organs are unwittingly transplanted into him.
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Now a half-ghoul, Kaneki is unable to stomach normal food and must embrace the inhuman cravings in his head if he is to stay alive. He finds shelter with a group of benevolent ghouls who run the local coffee shop, but when they are discovered by a pair of vicious government agents (Yo Oizumi and Nobuyuki Suzuki), Kaneki must choose a side.