Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island

Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island (2022)

機動戦士ガンダム ククルス・ドアンの島

After a covert mission goes wrong, Mobile Suit pilot Amuro Ray and his comrades are stranded on a remote island. The battalion was sent to a land called the Island of No Return to clear off any enemy forces, only to find a group of children and an enemy mecha attack. Now Amuro must find a way for them all to escape this mysterious land, but not before meeting a strange man—Cucuruz Doan.

Date of release
2022-06-03
TMDB
6.9 / 10 (25)
Runtime
1h 49m
Genres
Animation, Drama, Science Fiction, Action
Director
Yoshikazu Yasuhiko

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $7M
  • Based on: Cucuruz Doan's Island

Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island is a Japanese mecha animated film directed by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. The film is based on the fifteenth episode of the television series Mobile Suit Gundam—an installment notorious for its poor quality due to complete outsourcing and the director's (Yasuhiko's) hospitalization—leading Yasuhiko to consider it deserving of a proper remake. Set during the One Year War, the story centers on Amuro Ray piloting the Gundam alongside the crew of the White Base, as they are tasked with locating Zeon stragglers on a remote island. The film premiered in Japan on June 3, 2022.

Production

The film originated from the 15th episode of Mobile Suit Gundam. Director Yoshiyuki Tomino said the episode had so many mistakes that he wanted to skip it and never release it. This was mostly due to art director and character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko being hospitalized. Although the episode was never released in western territories, Sunrise often referenced it in different installments.

Tōru Furuya reprised his role of the protagonist Amuro Ray and did not express any struggle despite not having voiced him in decades. Shunsuke Takeuchi voiced the title character Cucuruz Doan; he noted Furuya was one of his inspirations when working as voice actor. In recording the movie, Yasuhiko commented that Takeuchi was cast late already by the time most of Furuya's lines were recorded.

Due to the differences of demographics between the 1970s and the 2020s, the character of Bright Noa was redesigned as a more adult character rather than the young adult from the TV series. Yasuhiko considered the film's children to be actual protagonists. In casting their voice actors, Yasuhiko aimed to make them noisy and separate them from the adult ones. The director wanted to prove that Japanese films could do better with child actors.

According to producer Naohiro Ogata, the film's elements are "anti-war" and "smaller battles". Although the episodes generally are 20 minutes long, the original story was expanded to 100 minutes which, according to Kawai, would surprise the audience. Kawai personally wanted the film to properly depict Amuro's mecha RX-78-02 Gundam in the same fashion as the original television series from 1978.

The film's theme song is "Ubugoe" by Hiroko Moriguchi.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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