This 2004 Japanese film appears to have garnered all its notoriety from the simple fact that it’s filmed using the same technique as “300” and “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”.

The technique, as most well know, involves actors standing in front of a green screen. Basically, everything other than the actors is computer-generated. This lends itself to an over-emphasis on visuals, which wouldn’t be a bad thing if the filmmakers making most of these things had any regard for storytelling, which they most often do not. In the case of “Casshern”, you add the additional element of Japanese culture and what seems to me to be a kitchen sink approach to filmmaking and it’s really a recipe for confusion.

In order for science fiction to work, it really needs a very basic concept. “Casshern” appears to want to add as many complications to its story as humanly possible. It kind of starts out like “The Terminator” and then molds into something more like “The Matrix” and then morphs into something that’s basically incomprehensible.

Here’s the story as close as I can figure it: Japan has been fighting a war with the machines of Europa and has recently won, though at the expense of the human race. A geneticist named Dr. Azuma (Akira Terao) has discovered a type of cell he dubs Neo cells that can regenerate human limbs. In fact, they grow these limbs in a pool. Unfortunately, lightning strikes the pool and Neo-Sapiens are born. They’re a group of resentful people since they’re basically parts. More or less, they declare war on their makers. At the same time that lightning hits and creates the Neo-Sapiens, it also reanimates Azuma’s dead son, Tetsuya, who becomes the title character. The Casshern hero is caught in a triangle between protecting his people, discovering the corruptness of his leaders, trying to figure out what his father is ultimately up to, and battling different antagonists whose evil isn’t really that evil and whose motives aren’t all that objectionable when you get right down to it.

Anyway, if this sounds like a whole bunch of convoluted crap, you’d be correct. “Casshern” is not too far from the type of movies likely to be created on Xbox 360’s or Xbox 720’s in a few years. Frankly, “Halo 3” was a better plot and I didn’t really follow that one too well either.