Ultraman: The Next, or simply ULTRAMAN (ウルトラマン, Urutoraman), is a 2004 Japanese tokusatsu superhero film directed by Kazuya Konaka and produced by Tsuburaya Productions. It was part of the Ultra N Project, by Tsuburaya Productions, that aimed to reinvent the Ultra Series for an older audience.
Synopsis[]
First Lieutenant Shunichi Maki of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force is a prestigious F-15 Eagle jet pilot. A lifelong fan of flying since he was a child, being a pilot is his ultimate dream. Unfortunately, his duties distance himself from his wife, Yoko, who feels neglected, and his son, Tsugumu, who has a possibly terminal congenital blood disease.
Maki decides to quit the Air Force to devote more time to his family and to spend whatever time is left with his son. He takes a part-time job as a commercial tour guide for a kindly group of people who allow him time to take care of his family.
Prior to quitting, Maki and his flight partner Yamashima are alerted to a strange red light streaking towards Japan, and Maki's plane passes through the red light seemingly without any damage. He suffers no ill effects other than strange images briefly playing out in his mind. He later discovers that the images are telepathic messages from a strange being that exists in the red light.
Summary[]
Shunichi Maki is a fighter pilot with the Japan Self Defense Forces (JSDF) on what he intends to be his final day with the JSDF. His six year old son has been diagnosed with a deadly illness. The doctors say he may have only a precious few more months to live. Maki has decided to give up his love for flying high powered jets in order to devote more time to his family.'
But just as he is about to turn in his uniform for the last time the order comes to scramble. A strange UFO has been sighted on a direct course for Tokyo. The government suspects this may be a missile launched from an unfriendly military power in the area. Maki's orders are to identify the object or destroy it.
But as the jets near the UFO all of the other jets in the squadron find their engines mysteriously disabled. They have no choice butto break off. Yet Maki's jet remains unaffected. He alone continues on course. As he nears the object, Maki can just barely make out its form, a ball of glowing red plasma streaking through the upper atmosphere at phenomenal speed. A moment after he sees the object, Maki blacks out.
Observers at the JSDF base watch their radar screens in horror as Maki's jet collides with the UFO. A search party sets out immediately to recover the wreckage from a remote mountainous region of Japan. To their astonishment they find Maki not only alive, but virtually unhurt. Yet there is no evidence as to how he might have survived, not even a parachute to indicate he ejected before the crash. Maki himself has no memory of anything after he lost consciousness aboard his plane.
A military tribunal is called, but as far as they can determine, Maki is telling the truth. They reluctantly allow him to leave the base to join his family on the condition that he make himself available for further interrogation.
Maki takes a job at a small company that gives tourists hour-long joy rides on a Cessna. It's not like piloting fighter jets. But the steady hours mean he gets more time to be near his son. On his first day a strange woman in black, Sara Mizuhara, signs up for a ride and holds Maki at gunpoint, ordering him to fly far off his usual course. The mysterious hijacker takes him to a secret military base where Maki is quarantined in a huge concrete reinforced bunker. His demands to know why are met with stoic silence. Finally, once Maki is securely locked into the bunker's basement under guard and unable to escape, he is told the answer.
Maki was not the first to mysteriously survive a deadly crash with a mysterious UFO. Only a week earlier another soldier named Takafumi Udo experienced the very same thing. But in the previous case, after the crash soldier's body began to undergo bizarre changes. Udo grew in size and strength, eventually mutating into a huge and powerful monster. The monster escaped from the base and is now on the loose in the Japanese countryside.
Maki is now in the custody of an ultra clandestine wing of the Self Defense Forces. They have captured Maki for two reasons. First, although he shows no signs of the mutation the previous pilot suffered, they fear it's only a matter of time. And they believe the mutated Udo is looking for Maki. In other words, they are using Maki as bait.
The first beast has been code named “The One.” “And what code name do you have for me?” Maki shouts at the woman in black. Sara hesitates for a moment, then says quietly, “The Next.” We learn that Udo was Sara's fiance and that Sara, a specialist in chemical weaponry, may be the one person who holds the key to his destruction.
The monster soon makes its appearance. But now it has grown even larger and more powerful than before. The reptilian alien beast towers nearly ten meters (30 feet) tall. Its massive snake-like tail can be used as a whip of incredible force and its sinister fangs are capable of tearing a human being to shreds.
As predicted, the monster rips through the bunker's solid concrete walls and heads straight for the door to the underground area in which Maki has been confined. As it begins to try and rip the heavy wrought iron door off of its hinges the JDSF Forces open fire on the beast.
The monster is momentarily distracted. In the fray the creature does not even notice that Maki is now forcing the heavy door open from the inside. The door bursts open. No human being could have done such a thing! Maki steps out and faces the gigantic monster. The monster turns with an almost gleeful expression on its hideous face. It will soon make a meal out of this pathetic creature.
But just then something begins to happen to Maki. His skin begins to take on a silver sheen. His muscles begin to expand. His eyes bulge out and form into an almost insect-like shape. Soon even his physical size starts to increase. Within seconds Maki has completely transformed into a bizarre alien creature, as gigantic as the monster he faces. But this new alien is very different from the reptilian beast. It has a basically human shape, though its face looks something like the insect-eyed aliens of various UFO legends. On its chest is a glowing red V-shaped mark.
The aliens face each other, ready for battle. Just then Sara fires upon the reptilian creature. It turns, ready to snuff out her tiny life. But the humanoid alien stops the reptilian. Soon they are struggling with each other, threatening to tear apart the entire bunker.
Though the reptilian creature is strong, the humanoid is stronger and seems to be taking the upper hand in the fight. But just then the glowing red mark on his chest begins to pulsate. The humanoid is running low on energy! The reptilian monster sees its chance. It's too weak to defeat the humanoid, but it knows it can escape and recover for the next battle. The reptilian dashes off into the forest. The humanoid alien collapses. The alien begins to regain its human shape and soon Maki is in his usual form again.
The battle has weakened Maki considerably. There is no guarantee he will be able to regain his superhuman form again and defeat the monster. Nor is it known whether Maki himself might become a danger to humanity should the transformation take place once more.
Soon enough there are disturbing reports from the Shinjuku district in the heart of downtown Tokyo. A poisonous gas has been detected and the authorities suspect a terrorist threat. Maki knows better. The One has returned. Maki takes off in pursuit and Sara follows.
They encounter a strange bedraggled figure in the subterranean waterways below the city. Sara recognizes him as Udo, her former lover. He pleads with her to tell him what has become of him. Sara, clutching a gun containing darts filled with a poison she has designed to kill him, wants to trust him. But she has seen too much already. In the previous battle, Udo in his monstrous form had tried to kill her. She fires. But the tears welling in her eyes cause her to miss. It's just what the monster hoped for, he transforms back into the alien beast and captures Sara. Unbeknownst to him though, she has one dart left and fires it at point blank range into his heart. But instead of dying, the monster grows enraged and escapes again.
Absorbing the bodies of thousands of sewer rats, The monster known as The One becomes even larger and more powerful. He emerges into the open, towering above even Tokyo's mightiest skyscrapers! Maki transforms into his alien shape and the two do battle, threatening to crush the city to dust under their massive feet.
Can Maki destroy The One while still keeping his human heart and soul? Or will the beast prevail?
Characters[]
to be added
Cast[]
- Tetsuya Bessho as Shunichi Maki
- Kenya Osumi as Takafumi Udo
- Kyoko Toyama as Sara Mizuhara
- Nae Yuki as Yoko Maki
- Toshiya Nagasawa
- Masao Kusakari
- Ryouhei Hirota as Tsugumu Maki
Notes[]
- to be added
References[]
External Links[]
- to be added