Michel Vaillant

Was this released in the US or Canada under a diferent title?

If you thought Driven was a bad movie, Michel Vaillant will disappoint you also. This movie will treat you the sights and sounds of some thing that is supposed to be endurance and rally racing. This movie might be worth your time if it shows up on some movie channel.
Highlights of this bad movie,
 Rival team’s covert sniper takes out wheel of transporter, sends it into lake.
 Drivers leap from helicopter, open rear of transporter, drive cars onto highway, headed towards the race track for daytime qualifying session
 Cars run low on fuel, pull into a gas station, and fill up with pump fuel to make it to the track and turn in qualifying lap
 Arch rival team is a win at al costs American Team, ran by the daughter of a racer who could not beat Team Valliant
 Team Leader kidnaps and holds hostage Michel Valliant’s father, gives bad performance on how she watched he father suffer many years because he could not beat Mr. Valliant Sr.
 Michel Valliant is forced to wear Team Leader’s helmet and fire suit and drive for Team Leader to ensure his father’s safety
 More helmet switching ensues, mistaken identities, and on track revenge brings to life the fiery dream and vision experienced by mother of Michel Valliant during the opening scenes of the movie.
 Team Valliant Wins the 24 Hours of Lemans

It was interesting to see the arch rival team portrayed as an American team. If you studied mass media and movies in college, you may recall the discussions on who or what ethnicities are portrayed as the bad guys.
This movie belongs on the same shelf as Driven and the Fast and the Furious 1&2.

I thought I wasted my 470 yen, but my older son enjoyed the sights and sounds of the race cars, and the surrealistic cinematography is captivating.

I cannot comment on the acting becuase the language soundtrack was in French or dubbed Japanese.

 

Preview of the Speed Racer feature...

K

 

They've been making books since the 1970s with that series, it's made in France. The hero's done just about every kind of racing there is (a la Mario Andretti, actually) with stories that just get more insane as time goes on. There's no real depth in the stories, but it's nice to read comic books that are centered around racing.

I was expecting the movie to be more of the same, guess I was right.

 

I thought at first that this thread was about Canadian racer Michael Valiante.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TheCanuck &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">They've been making books since the 1970s with that series, it's made in France. The hero's done just about every kind of racing there is (a la Mario Andretti, actually) with stories that just get more insane as time goes on. There's no real depth in the stories, but it's nice to read comic books that are centered around racing.

I was expecting the movie to be more of the same, guess I was right. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks , that helps explain more about the movie. The logos seemed a bit funny, since you mentioned there have been books since the 70's, that seemed to make sense to me.