Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999) 4 ½ [Top 200]

Director: Hiroyuki Okiura

Stars: Yoshikazu Fujiki, Sumi Mutoh &Hiroyuki Kinosha

Genre:  Animation | Drama | Fantasy

MPAA Rating:

Running Time: 102 min

Synopsis:

{According to IMDB}

"A traumatized member of an elite para-military police force falls for the sister of a female terrorist courier who died in front of him on duty. "

Discussion

Let me start of by saying that I am no anime expert. The only two anime cartoons I followed growing up where Dragon Ball z and Sailor Moon (Yes, Sailor Moon was awesome) but aside those two, I never grew onto the craze of the whole Japanese animation. However, a friend of mine who loves and is extremely into anime recommended this one along with a few others. She convinced me that there are intelligent anime out there. Because before she told me this, I saw most anime as silly, and at times over the top cartoons. Yet, after viewing this one, I was left with so many emotions; all of which were positive. I have never seen such greatly written animation in my life, the characters felt real, not cartoony nor comical. The whole movie played out as how Hollywood movies should be: authentic, original, fresh and mind boggling.

Jin Roh begins with an excerpt explaining that Tokyo in the future will go through a war, of which poverty and misery will arise. There will be renegades from police squads joining rebels in protest against the government. Because of this the government implements into action the Wolf Brigade: Specially trained soldiers to eradicate all forms of threats to the government, that being domestic or foreign terrorist who want to oppose the government. After this excerpt, we are introduced to the protagonist “Kazuki” a dedicated Para military soldier who witnesses a young girl detonate a bomb in front of him. Due to this incident he ends up traumatic and shocked. We, the audience, see through Kazuki’s eyes how he goes through the emotions and nightmares.  He later falls for the sister of the girl who died in the suicide bomb. We see slowly grow the affection between the two characters. I was extremely impressed and loved the allusions to the red riding hood story; giving a metaphor, so to speak, of how Kazuki is the wolf, and the girl is the Red Riding Hood.

Jin Roh is a very slow and pacefull film that I suggest you take your undivided attention when viewing; do not text or multitask on this one, this one deserves full concentration.  I viewed this movie 3 times- the first in English, the other 2 in Japanese. All tracks were excellently executed, I have seen bad dubs before…that is why I would avoid dubbed movies, but here, it is eloquently and marvelously dubbed with great voice actors. I felt the emotion; the characters grow in each sequence in the dubbed edition (same in the jap version) this anime left me astonished at not only the story but the conclusion (which I won’t ruin) it was well closed, yet I was not expecting it at all. I honestly believe anyone who is interested in anime, or is new to it like myself, should go out and buy it…because I will.

DVD

I got this DVD from a friend (like I mentioned) I didn't get to see the special features because I only got the first disc. I however did see the movie 3 times. First in English dub, then in Japanese 5.1 Surround Sound and lastly in Japanese DTS. I will go over each one individually

Video 

Jin Roh is presented in 1:85:1 Widescreen. The quality is overall pretty decent, keep in mind this is animation, not live action. The style of animation in this movie is kind of fuzzy, yet expressive in emotion...if that makes any sense. I didn’t notice any artifacts in the print, or any signs of video compression. Overall the source seemed intact to me.

Audio

The audio in DTS was more profound than its 5.1.Souround counterpart. I noticed it more in the scenes involving the protesting; where explosions and gunfire took place. I had very little to no complains with the audio quality of either 3 versions. But the winner is definitely the Japanese DTS

Bottom Line

Buy it, yes buy it now! I am already thinking of ordering my copy after I finish this review. This is definitely a masterpiece of modern anime cinema. SO BUY IT NOW! You wont be dissapointed, I promose that for sure.

Theatrical trailer (american version)