20th Century Boys 1: Beginning of the End 2008 123movies

Watch: 20世紀少年 －第1章－ 終わりの始まり 2008 123movies, Full Movie Online – In 1969, Kenji, an elementary school kid and his friends built a secret base during their summer holidays. They fantasized that they had to fight villains who were out to conquer the world and wrote them in the Book of Prophecies. Years later in 1997, Kenji becomes a convenience store manager and leads a regular life after giving up his dreams to become a rock star. His boring life is suddenly turned upside down when his old classmate dies mysteriously and an entire family in the neighborhood disappears. At the same time, a religious cult and its mysterious leader, Friend emerges and a strange chain of events duplicating exactly the events described in the Book of Prophecies follow..
Plot: In 1969, Kenji, an elementary school kid and his friends built a secret base during their summer holidays. They fantasized that they had to fight villains who were out to conquer the world and wrote them in the Book of Prophecies. Years later in 1997, Kenji becomes a convenience store manager and leads a regular life after giving up his dreams to become a rock star. His boring life is suddenly turned upside down when his old classmate dies mysteriously and an entire family in the neighbourhood disappears. At the same time, a religious cult and its mysterious leader, Friend emerges and a strange chain of events duplicating exactly the events described in the Book of Prophecies follow. Is this the beginning of the end of the world? Who is Friend?
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Ratings:

	6.6/10 Votes: 2,644
	33% | RottenTomatoes
	N/A | MetaCritic
	N/A Votes: 75 Popularity: 6.55 | TMDB

Reviews:

Below average manga inspired movie
The story is interesting to begin with, with a bunch of kids creating an “end of the world” story and then watching it made come true when they are adults. They embark on a mission to save the world, as their original story prophesied.

However, the plot is really weird. There is a virus that kills people by making their blood explode, but it seems it is not contagious, it needs to be sprayed on. A giant robot smashes through Tokyo and the police stop in front of it to shoot guns. The leader of a hypnotic cult becomes the leader of the most important party in Japan, and so on and so on.

Then, as world saviors go, the heroes are the most inept I have ever seen. The movie is very long, at 142 minutes, and it is only the first part of a three film story. The acting is pretty bad, too.

Bottom line: it seems this is a failed attempt to mix the success of the Death Note franchise (I don’t know what that thing was successful either) and the comic book/manga craze that is taking over the movie world in the US and the rest of the world. There is a feel reminiscent of Watchmen in the film, but only a trace. I am not saying that it is not worth watching, but I can’t say I liked it.

Boring, stupid and nonsensical
Apparently, millions of Japanese are willing to worship a man in a mask who only talks about his childhood… and apparently, the hero of his childhood is Kenji, so one would imagine that all these idiots would leave Mr. Friend behind and go and worship Kenji instead. Right?

Nope. Instead, this cult’s followers burn each other alive, blow up airports and have developed a lethal virus that completely drains the human body of all blood. Hey, I’m not opposed to daft plots when they’re amusing, but 20th Century Boys pretty much lacks humour, as “mysterious” people point Kenji – the film’s protagonist – in the right direction so that he can play a game in which he may or may not get to save the world.

Yeah, it’s that dumb. And upon figuring out that all these terrorist attacks taking place are being scheduled by the events of a comic Kenji drew as a kid, instead of taking the said comic to the authorities on finally finding where he left it some 25-30 years ago, Kenji instead runs over to a friend’s house, digs out his old guitar and jams out in the morning’s early hours!

But that’s perfectly logical, since Kenji once aspired to be a glam-rock star.

With a running time of well over 2 hours, I can’t recall the last film I watched during which I spent almost as much time looking at the clock. Unfortunately, the sheer humdrum and stupidity of the film all got too much to bear and I eventually turned it off. I now waste even more time over this crap-fest by advising other IMDb users of its sheer awfulness.

Avoid.

Other Information:

Original Language ja
Runtime 2 hr 22 min (142 min)
Budget 20000000
Revenue 31244858
Status Released
Rated N/A
Genre Adventure, Fantasy, Mystery
Director Yukihiko Tsutsumi
Writer Yasushi Fukuda, Takashi Nagasaki, Naoki Urasawa
Actors Toshiaki Karasawa, Etsushi Toyokawa, Takako Tokiwa
Country Japan
Awards N/A
Production Company N/A
Website N/A

Technical Information:

Sound Mix Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio 1.85 : 1
Camera NAC Hi-Motion, Fujinon Cine Super E Series Lenses, Phantom HD Camera, Fujinon Cine Super E Series Lenses, Sony CineAlta HDC-F950, Fujinon Cine Super E Series Lenses
Laboratory Tokyo Laboratory Ltd., Tokyo, Japan (prints)
Film Length N/A
Negative Format HDCAM
Cinematographic Process Digital Intermediate (2K) (master format), HDCAM SR (1080p/24) (source format)
Printed Film Format 35 mm (spherical)