DVD Review: Sword of the Stranger: Masahiro Ando: Movies & TV

Jun19

DVD Review: Sword of the Stranger: Masahiro Ando: Movies & TV

Posted by admin | on 19 June, 08:54 AM

Product Description
Studio: Infinity Resources Inc Release Date: 06/16/2009 Run time: 102 minutes

An Explosive Ending,

By Sniff Code “www.sniffcode.com” (Somewhere out there) -

This movie made a one day appearance at the theaters and thanks to a killer trailer I made a point of not missing it. Despite the movie being relatively new, there’s a strange nostalgia I felt while watching it. For one, most or all of the art is hand drawn. On the big screen, the line quality is very noticeable, especially since the past decade most animation has been exempt from any line quality at all en lieu of 3D. So seeing the hand of the artist in motion was a feeling I had missed from the old days of watching Charlie Brown How I manage to put Charlie Brown and a Master Samurai in the same sentence…I don’t know.

But anyway…

The other thing that grabbed me was that this movie actually spends time developing both story and its characters, and it does an incredible job at that. Granted, the plot itself is a bit cliche: The bad guys are after an immortality potion that requires a young boy, Kotaro, to be sacrificed in order for the potion to work. But the cliche is padded with a strong historical back drop that gives the story a surprising gritty realism. While so many movies chop away at a good story and evolving character elements, this one slows down just enough to make you actually care about the fate of the Nameless Samurai, Kotaro and even his dog.

The steady pacing was a good way to build up to an ending so loaded with tension that I could actually feel my muscles locked up. As the Nameless character does battle with his enemies, you can’t help but to feel that he may be in way over his head. In a lot of way, the movie reminded me of “Ninja Scroll”: there are a host of foes that the Nameless Saurai must confront and you’ll have your doubts about his skills being matched to each one. Such doubts are the hallmark of a gripping story.

A good all around anime,

By Maritas (PA, USA) -

I was given this movie to watch and I must say, I was quite pleased with everything about this movie. The hand drawn art work was beautifully done as well as the fleshed out characters.

It’s some times hard to find good anime with a good story line that isn’t just a bunch of random fight scenes thrown in to try and keep it interesting - this one had a story. The development between the two main characters follows along perfectly with the story. You can see each character come into their own.

The movie it self, very well done. I watched the Japanese version and the being I’m a animae snob and only watch them with subtitles, this one was done just right. The text didn’t fly from the screen as soon as it was said and gave the viewer enough to read what was happening and watch what else was happening.

I’ll purchase the one coming out this month and hope that it’s the same style editing and subtitle style.

Great action and drawing put it over the top,

By eric_the_redder (Los Angeles) -

This review is from: Sword of the Stranger [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

OK, the story line here is maybe just a B or B+ protection/revenge kind of thing. But I went with a 10-year-old Studio Ghibli fan, and we both ended up liking this a lot. It’s simply really well done in the action and visuals department. I think it will be considered a lesser known classic.
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