Introduction
Biohazard 4D had its introduction to the English speaking Resident
Evil community when a series of screenshots first came to its attention
in 2000. Initially, it was thought that the shots were from Resident Evil
4 for the Playstation 2 console. This, of course, turned out to be false
soon after when some machine translation revealed it to be a CG movie.
It would be nearly four years until the English fans would catch more
than a short glimpse of the film. How that came about will be explained
in detail, however first I'd like to give a brief run down of the production
details for the film. The official summary of the movie is below, courtesy
of Björn. Be warned though, the below text almost explains the entire
movie.
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Because of the virus developed by Umbrella, Raccoon City had turned
into a city of death, full of wandering zombies.
Claus and his men are sent there to rescue Dr. Cameron when they
encounter a new species of creature in a warehouse in the outskirts
of the city.
Claus loses some of his companions to the monster, but he manages
to defeat it.
However, the virus lived on inside the shreds of meat scattered
from the creature!
It was a new kind of miracle virus, fusing with one life form after
another, transforming them into bizarre beasts.
Before long, Claus finds out the details of Umbrella's plan, in
Dr. Cameron's underground research lab.
At that moment, a scream could be heard from Ed, whom they had left
behind to monitor the communication lines.
Claus heads back to rescue him, but when they get there they see
that the virus has fused with Ed, and made him into a monster.
Pursued by the monster, Claus makes his escape to the surface, but
once there he is surrounded by a group of zombies.
Will Claus be able to escape from there alive...?
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History
Released in November of 2000, the film began its life as a joint
project between Capcom and the Tokyo-based Visual Science Laboratories.
Under the direction of Oohata Kouichi, the film would use stereoscopic
glasses to give the film a 3D effect. Not content with just the 3D appearance
of the film, Capcom, Flagship and Digital Amuse worked together to build
a theme park ride which would accompany the film. The ride would blow
air onto the audience, jostle their seats and give the sense that they
were part of the movie itself, hence to "4D" name. The film
debuted it Japan on October 27th 2000 at the Tokyo International Fantastic
Film Festival 2000. Not much is known after this point, but what we do
know is that eventually, the ride lost popularity and it moved to different
amusement parks under various forms, including single-seating units, similar
to a photo booth. The film was also chopped up into smaller lengths to
shorten the ride and allow for more viewings per day. In total there were
3 cuts of the film. "Short Version" which runs for 10 minutes
and 18 seconds, "Short Version (2) which runs 13 minutes and 11 seconds
and "Full Version" which runs for 17 minutes and 30 seconds.
The credits have a runtime of 2 minutes and 32 seconds. In order to shorten
the length, some of the story that isn't shown is explained by a series
of black and white images with text on them for the 10 minute and 18 second
cut. Since we will be posting the "Full Version" along with
the credits, for completeness take, you can view the images below with
their translation.
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Raccoon
City, which we visited in Biohazard. |
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The
U.B.C.S unit led by Claus follow
female scientist Dr. Cameron's... |
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...ID
card signal, and... |
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...headed
for a food warehouse
at the outskirts of the city. |
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Through the years, a few small snippets of the film worked
their way out of Japan, though most were very low quality captures, though
Capcom did initally release six screenshots and the poster on the official
site for the film.
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Official
Capcom Shot 1 |
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Official
Capcom Shot 2 |
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Official
Capcom Shot 3 |
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Official
Capcom Shot 4 |
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Official
Capcom Shot 5 |
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Official
Capcom Shot 6 |
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Official
Capcom Poster |
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Some shots were from the 3D moddeler on the project, Gouta Nanami, who
released concept art, renders and short cuts of the film on his online
portfolio.
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Render
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Render
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Render
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Render
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Render
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Render
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Render
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Render
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Concept
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Release
Somewhat unknown to the English speaking Resident Evil community, in late
2003, the French Resident Evil site Survivhor,
run by our good friend "Wesker", managed to get a VHS copy of
the film, thanks to his friends in the Biohazard
France portal site, but was unable to release it in its full form
due to legal issues and its close relationship with Capcom itself. Working
through Christmas and the next year, Doughboy managed to translate the
film. Allowing Wesker to post a summary of the film which contained extensive
screenshots, in March of 2004. They had obtained the copy from a Yahoo
Japan listing and it was later known that the seller had sold two copies
of the film on VHS and then disappeared. The second copies where-abouts
would be lost for almost a full year. By late 2004, the film had grown
in the hardcore circles as sort of a Holy Grail, with some aligning it
to the likes of Biohazard 1.5 and other "lost" projects. It
is in late 2004 that the fans outside of Japan would get their first glimpse
of the full film, thanks to a German Resident Evil collector who goes
by the name "biohazardrebirth". After noticing an auction on
ebay for a DVD version of Biohazard 4D Executer, staff member Carnivol
quickly capitalized and won the auction. He created
a post on Bioflames, arranging to release the film while many were
confused about its origin. Shortly afterwords, Rehorror staff member Temp
revealed the origin, showing that the seller had many copies on sale.
Seeing this, I too joined into the frenzy and won a copy. It wasn't until
after it arrived that I realized it was a bootelg copy. But still, I wanted
to know of the origin of the DVD transfer so I could possibly see if I
could create a higher quality transfer from the original source. Speaking
with BiohazardRebrith, he revealed that the source was a friend of his
in Japan who had found a bootleg VHS copy on the black market, presumably
his friend was the one who purchased the second tape on Yahoo Japan. Unfortunately,
no high quality copy could be made. With that done, I set my sights on
getting the movie translated, as it was in japanese with no subtitles.
Our staff member, dmkf, just so happened to know a friend who could translate
Japanese. Realizing that the film would go from Japanese, to Russian,
and then finally to English, I knew the translation wouldn't be as accurate
as a direct one, but we were left with few options. There was, at the
time, a race to see which site would get a translated copy up first. Rehorror
eventually won that race, though certain corners were cut on both the
translation, taken without permission from the summary off of Survivhor
by Rehorror staff member "Temp", and the encode quality which
left us with an opening to capitalize on. The lack of credit to Survivhor
by Rehorror also led to some heated discussion between webmasters.
After a long translation process, THIA finally released its version,
using the divx codec, on December 23rd, 2004. As stated earlier, the translation
wasn't 100% accurate, but it was the best that was available for the time.
Since then, we've grown quite a bit and have a professional Japanese translator
working for THIA, Björn. I asked him to take a look at the film and
come up with a more accurate translation, which he did. We'll get to the
video in a moment, but first, good friend and forum member "TheSelfishGene"
managed to find one of the 4D rides on one of his travels in Japan, and
was kind enough to provide us with both pictures and a summary of his
experience with the ride:
Gene's Visit
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Last July, I had the opportunity to ride the Biohazard 4D executor.
I was enjoying a brief holiday in Osaka before beginning work here
in Japan. On the 10th of July, 2007, I went the Osaka aquarium with
some Americans I met in the hotel the previous night. We were all
excited about seeing the giant (enemy) crabs. Attached to the aquarium
there is an I-max theatre. It was only a tiny bit more expensive
to visit both the I-max cinema and the aquarium than just the aquarium
alone, so we decided to do try both.
We had about thirty minutes to wait before the I-max session, so
we decided to check out the nearby shopping plaza. In a quiet part
on the second floor, I found a Biohazard 4D executor booth. The
Americans in the group had absolutely no idea why I went absolutely
mental when I saw it. I didn't ride it initially, because we had
to return to the cinema. After the I-max session, we went through
the aquarium. It took longer than we expected, so we had to leave
immediately to get to the hotel on time to meet others for dinner.
I returned on the 13th to finally try the 'ride'.
As you can see, it's a tiny two seater booth. This is not how the
film was originally released. It only plays a shorter version, which
runs for about 8 or 9 minutes. Inside the booth there are two pairs
of 3D glasses. All the '4D' effects, like the shaking chairs and
the blowing air, are intact.
When I returned, I was actually very surprised to see two people
riding it. I had to wait about 5 minutes before it was finally my
turn.
I threw my bag in, then realised I should probably take some photos,
which is why you can see my bag inside in some snaps. Then I dropped
500 yen (about $5.00 US) in the slot, and donned the 3D glasses.
There was quite significant burn in. I guess the ride hadn't seen
much attention. The video played from a projection.
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Side
of the unit |
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Back
of the unit |
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Another
shot showing the side |
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Seats |
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Glasses
and coin box |
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From memory, here are the scenes that were included in the shortened
version I 'experienced'.
***CONTAINS SPOILERS***
The beginning of the films is the same, and the scene in the warehouse
plays consistently up to the cockroach POV shots.
These are some of the effects I can remember in this opening part.
When the forklift raises, the seat drops about an inch from underneath
you, which is very unexpected. From memory, the seat rumbles when
the roaches run over the ground, and there is a gush of air (and
'crack' from the compressor) when the monster explodes.
I believe the story then resumed with the brief scene where some
of the soldiers descend into the manhole. Very little is shown of
the underground exploration. Mostly just the data retrieval. The
scene with Ed being attacked by the crow is intact, and then the
underground pursuit. Once Claus is on the surface, he is immediately
joined by the monster (which isn't true to the original film). From
memory, everything after this plays out close true to the original
film. The ending scene in the car may have been shortened slightly.
Overall, the short version I saw was quite light on the effects.
But it was still a very enjoyable experience. The animation is certainly
showing it's age, but the 3D effects, as well as the air and vibrations,
means that the film is worth watching as originally intended.
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Gene also provided us with directions to the location
for the stand-alone unit, which can be found using the guide below.
Gene's Directions
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So, how can you get there yourself? It's not too difficult, because
it's near a very popular attraction (the world-class aquarium).
In Osaka, get to a subway station, and make your way to Osaka-ko
station, on the Chuo line (Dark green line on all the subway maps).
From the station, follow the signs to the aquarium. It's not in
the same building as the aquarium, but it's in a building adjacent
to the aquarium, on the second floor, in the direction furthest
from the aquarium.
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Directions |
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Please note: The descriptions are as accurate as I can possibly
recall. The directions are valid as of July 15th 2007, and subject
to change without notice.
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Download
So without any further delay, I present our (hopefully) final release
of Biohazard 4D Executer. Credits are in order first, though. I'd like
to thank Anna Trukhina for her original translations, dmkf for handling
the Russian to English work, and of course Björn for correcting the
mistakes. Wesker from Survivhor
for helping out with some of the facts around the community section, Carnivol
for lending his subtitling experience, and TheSelfishGene who provided
us with pictures and information on interacting with an actual stand-alone
unit.
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Biohazard
4D Executer
The "Full Version" with credits.
Translation courtesy of Björn,
Anna Trukhina and dmkf |
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No Release
No Release