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Category:    Home > Reviews > Superhero > Action > Matiral Arts Cycle > Mirageman (2007/MagNet/Magnolia DVD)

Mirageman (2007/MagNet/Magnolia DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C-     Extras: C-     Feature: B-

 

 

There is no shortage of Hollywood superhero films with gigantic budgets and mind-blowing spectacle.  However, there is also a rising trend of low-budget indie filmmakers who are creating their own – often more realistic and meaningful – renditions of the superhero genre.  Among the best of them is the Chilean film Mirageman.

 

Chilean martial artist and actor Marko Zaror plays Maco, a solitary man who, along with his brother, was orphaned after a violent home invasion.  Maco channels his grief and anger into his training, but his brother – now living in an institution – has become cripplingly introverted, rarely speaks, and never leaves his room.  One night Maco stumbles upon a robbery in progress and saves a television news reporter.  When he sees the hope and enthusiasm that the news has given his brother, Maco decides to continue fighting crime and becomes Mirageman.

 

Mirageman is at once an intelligent film that addresses the consequences and limitations of a “real life” masked vigilante, and a raw back-to-basics martial arts film.  Marko Zaror has a power and intensity to his martial arts that hearkens back to Bruce Lee.

 

This film was clearly shot on video, but it was executed competently so that it doesn’t look rough the way video often does.  The picture is in the anamorphically enhanced 1.78:1 widescreen format.  The audio (Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0) is a bit rougher with some hiss on the dialogue track, but you won’t notice it unless you’re listening for it.

 

The only extra on the disc is a single “Behind the Scenes” featurette.  Like the film, it’s not elaborate but it is interesting and well put together.

 

Magnet has a reputation of bringing together some of the best and most inventive films that you would have otherwise never heard of, and Mirageman has more than earned its place on that list.

 

 

-   Matthew Carrick


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