uch of the interest surrounding the modern superhero has stemmed from the development from the two-dimensional good guys of the early Cold War era to the dark and hyper-violent vigilantes of today. Witness, for example, the change in Batman from the campy '60s television series to 
the shadowy comics of Neal Adams and later, Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns), to Christian Bale's painfully intense
 portrayal last year in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins.

  But Batman sought justice, not vengeance. In contrast, how comfortable would we be with a masked hero whose actions go beyond vigilantism into the realm of terrorism? 

  "V for Vendetta is a multi-layered film," says producer Joel Silver, whose credits include the Matrix trilogy, the Lethal
 Weapon series, Die Hard and Predator. 

  "It can be enjoyed as a dynamic action picture, or audiences can go deeper into the complex issues and ideas it explores." 

  Set in a fictional, totalitarian Britain in the near future, the film
actors
Natalie Portman Hugo Weaving Stephen Rea Rupert Graves John Hurt  

director
James McTeigue

locations
Berlin, Germany London, England 

outtake
Based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, the screenplay was written by Andy and Larry Wachowski, the brains behind The Matrix trilogy.

follows the story of Evey (Natalie Portman), a young woman, who, when breaking a government-imposed curfew, falls into the hands of the Fringemen, the savage state police.

  With only pepper spray to defend herself, things seem hopeless, but before the encounter disintegrates into brutality, she is rescued by a mysterious masked stranger known only as "V" (Hugo Weaving).

  Soon Evey transforms from an anonymous office worker to a brave and politicized heroine.

  Said Portman, "The film looks at the kind of choices that must be made in order to be a political person, and how those choices affect an individual's private life."

  Evey learns that her saviour sees himself as fated to disrupt a cruel, oppressive system. But while V's stated quest is to free the people of England from their fascist leaders, he is also on a very personal mission to wreak vengeance on those who imprisoned and tortured him.

  V is as much a monster as he is a hero, and nowhere is this duality more apparent than in the mask he wears that bears the likeness of Guy Fawkes, England's legendary saboteur who hoped to end persecution of Catholics by King James I by engineering the treasonous "Gun-powder Plot" in 1605 to blow up the House of Lords.

  Fawkes and his men were caught and executed, and their plan to take down their government never came to pass. In the film, V vows to carry out the plot that Fawkes failed to realize: he will blow up Parliament.

  Director James McTeigue describes V for Vendetta as a political thriller first and foremost with a very dark and multi-faceted character at its center. "On the one hand, V is altruistic, believing he can bring about great social change, but on the other hand he has this murderous vendetta towards anyone who's done him wrong."

  The question of where super- heroes should draw the line, therefore, remains unanswered.

- Rui Umezawa