[INTERVIEW] ‘ULTRAMAN: RISING’ Filmmakers Shannon Tindle & John Aoshima Craft a Compelling Tribute to the Ultimate Superhero (2025)

ULTRAMAN: RISING - Cr: Netflix © 2024

Courtney Howard // Film Critic

ULTRAMAN: RISING is a feature 23 years in the making, to say the very least. Co-writer/ Director Shannon Tindle has always been a fan of the Japanese series and iconic character, so it’s only natural that, when he saw the opportunity to make a love letter to this worldwide fandom, he jumped at it. He even cut his own teaser (featuring themes in the score from DUMBO’s ‘Baby Mine’ as if it were done by Vangelis”) to get it sold – one that correlated parenting with Ultraman protecting the safety of the world.

The animated film tells the story of a family in flux; Famous baseball player/ prodigal son Ken (Christopher Sean) returns home to Japan to pick up the superhero mantle left by his retired father, Professor Sato (Gedde Watanabe). It’s there, while out on a mission, Ken unwittingly becomes a surrogate father to baby kaiju Emi, whose mother has perished at the hands of overzealous Dr. Onda (Keone Young).

Together with co-director John Aoshima, the pair brought their own life experiences to create their personal, unique spin on a beloved superhero within the established mythos.

How difficult was the process to make all the visuals – motifs, homages, music cues, all that – look and feel coherent and cohesive? I’d imagine it took a lot of finessing.

Shannon Tindle: “It was a lot of finessing, but we have incredible partners in Scot Stafford, Randy Thom, Leff Lefferts, Gary Rizzo, Sky Sound, Hayden Jones, Stefan Drury, Sean Murphy, the teams at ILM. When you throw an idea down and you try to be very thoughtful about it, and you’ve gone through the process of the reels, it’s not just the stuff we call out. It’s the stuff they add to it to support it – and that’s where the magic really happens in the movie. I’d never thought of it as challenging. It’s more kind of a joy, because you see the surprises of things you didn’t think that they had. It was a lot of fun.”

John Aoshima: “We have our own fandom for Ultraman. Being part of this production has always been a great joy. You get to nerd out, but then our role as directors and storytellers is getting the crew to be inspired and to showcase and let them understand Ultraman. It was super fun to see our crew members discover Ultraman and go, ‘Okay. Now I know why he’s so popular.’”

Naturally we want to talk about the action sequences because there’s so much going on. However, I love how you both worked to preserve a sense of quiet reflection and stillness within the poignant moments, like Ami’s phone call with Ken, the baseball field simulation, and the father-son moments.

Tindle: “That’s why I made the movie. I wanted to talk about those relationships. Those are my favorite things in the film. One of the things that’s hard in animation is that, because things live in storyboard for so long, there’s times in live-action where you’ll hold a moment a lot longer, but you have the cues there. You don’t have to add anything to it. Animation requires you to use your imagination.

There were a lot of times where we got pushback to trim it down. I learned that once you cut it, you’re never gonna get that time back. We fought really hard. One of the moments, where Ken’s dad shows up at his doorstep and they’re having an argument and he says, ‘When mom disappeared you didn’t even look for her.’ Sato says, “We both feel the pain.” That was actually a line from Guillermo [del Toro]. He said that to me when we were having dinner and I just used it. We cut to wide and folks wanted us to trim it. I was like, ‘Absolutely not.’ If I could, I would add more time to it because it’s supposed to be uncomfortable. We spent all this time with them sparing in the middle of this fight, let’s cut wide, because wide actually feels more uncomfortable. It’s that gulf that you feel between them.

Those were the moments I fought hardest for, making sure that the Ami/ Ken interview was there. We got heavy pressure to cut that down and I absolutely refused. We have to understand her and we have to understand him – and some of that requires silence and quiet. I love that you responded to those moments because that’s what you work the hardest to protect.”

Aoshima: “I see it as your trademark. You don’t really get to see that stuff in animated films. To collaborate with Shannon and get to support that – the script and the vision – it’s a great experience. You study films in school and watch so many great works by the great masters. But then we’re in the medium of animation and we can flex those exercises and muscles that work for our story. It’s awesome.”

Your balancing a lot of plates in the sequence where Emi storms the city. It’s action, humor, drama. How challenging was that to hit all those tones in one swoop?

Tindle: “That was the sequence that was there from the beginning. It was one of the first we boarded when it was back at Sony. The North Star was, as a parent, a lot of people had the experience of their kid running out in the street. The kid is having the time of their life and the parent is having the worst time of theirs worrying their gonna die. Everything had to support that – Emi’s first time out in the real world, her following her daddy, trying to track him down, following the blimp. It helped that Ken was a super celebrity because his face would be everywhere. It was a joy. One of the things we changed was it originally happened at the Yomiuri Shimbun Building, which is where Ami works. We were like, let’s have it there because that’s where the news is and it’s the last place you’d want that to happen. Makiko Wakita said, ‘Well there’s not actually that much activity. What if we do Tokyo Tower?’ I was like, ‘Mothra was on Tokyo Tower. Let’s do Tokyo Tower!’”

Aoshima: “It’s a classic Tokusatsu, or nod to KING KONG.”

Tindle: “But that’s like escalation throughout and I love that. That’s a joy.”

ULTRAMAN: RISING is now streaming on Netflix.