I was amazed that this had never been reviewed, perhaps it is a bit to old but for those of you that are anime fans this is a must see. The thirty second synopsis would be: Child being hunted by the evil emperor in order to use his blood for an immortality ritual. Child hooks up with Ronin. Much violence ensues. This is one of the few animes I've seen really take advantage of a strong musical/SE core. I would highly recommend watching this in 5.1 or 7.1 as the sound, especially in the large fight scenes is extremely immersing. The animation is SPECTACULAR the backgrounds are meshed quite well with the action of the scene so you don't get the distorted color effect. The story, while predictable, manages to draw you in allowing you to get a strong sense of hope for the main characters. The voice acting is superb as the animators did a fantastic job showing the emotion that you could hear in their voice. As I said at the start, the sound effects and musical score really sell the action. You can hear the birds chirping, the leaves rustling and the wind being cut by blades. The score pushes the scenes that much farther, this is extremely well done in the fight scenes when the Japanese drums are banging in the background. If you are a fan of the "Sword and Sandal" genre you will really enjoy this film, or if you can just appreciate good quality anime you will not be disappointed. For comparison: The style of the movie is very similar to Ninja Scroll, much better though in my opinion. The music is on par with Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. I would probably tend to put D ahead of SotS simply due to the rain scene. Prior to seeing this film my favorite animes were probably Jin Roh or VHD:B, this has surpassed both of them as a whole. 5/5
I watched this several weeks ago and I was amazed by it as well. It was entertaining and gore too. I would recommend that anyone who enjoys Animes check it out.
I'm just bumping this up to the top because I snagged the Blu Ray, the additional features aren't really anything spectacular but, if for whatever reason you'd actually want to watch this in English instead of Japanese, now you have the opportunity. Once again though, I can't recommend this strongly enough to any sword and sandal anime fan.
This Anime was great, kept me interested and happy from start to finish. Interesting ending, almost had me biting my nails because it finishes on such a cliff hanger.
The whole siege sequence was utterly fantastic, the animation was so fast but not the least bit jumpy.
Had the HD version on my PC and deleted it after 5 mins... couldn't hold my interest. I'm aware I didn't give it a chance. Oh well.
That's surprising considering the first intense fight scene is only 3 or 4 minutes into the film. You should really consider giving it another shot if this is a genre you enjoy.
s It wasn't 5 consecutive minutes. I skipped halfway through the movie when the first minute bored me. Perhaps I should give it a second chance. A friend had passed me the movie on a hard drive and I had no idea what it was, or as good as you say it is. I assumed it was some random crap. For the record I don't watch anime, but there's the odd one that comes along and blows me away. (Akira comes to mind) I wish more anime were like that, rather than about over-emotional goody-two-shoes kids who sound like females and need a massive reality check. I just can't stomach that. It's like asking me to watch the Teletubbies and take it seriously.
I am not into the Anime-Pop genre either, when judging an anime I look at story > animation > score/soundtrack, this movie was one of the first to nail all three in quite some time. My other favorite is Jin-Roh, but I'm not sure you'd like it as well as it isn't an action packed film. It does have some great sequences but it is very drama heavy, while the animation is dated the voice acting is superb (even the english voice overs) and one of the best "conclusive" endings I've seen.
Title caught my eye, was a great movie saw it quite a while ago. Akira was great and Jin-Roh is an awesome movie too.