UROTSUKIDOJI: LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND
(English Language Version)
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1994 Ken Johnson
1:45, Animated/Action/Science Fiction, 1989, available in English & Japanese versions MPAA rating: NC-17 (adult situations, female nudity (drawn), explicit language, rape, graphic violence) Rating: four (on a scale of zero to five) Director: Hideki Takayama Voices of: Christopher Courage, Rebel Joy, Danny Bush, Lucy Morales, Rose Palmer, Randy Woodcock, Bick Balse, Jurgen Offen
A god is born to the human world every 3,000 years that will bring peace to three worlds; the world of the humans, the world of the demons, and the world of the half-beasts. This god is called the Overfiend, and his time has come. Beings from the half-beast world have been waiting for the arrival of the Overfiend, so they can protect him. Beings from the demon world have also been waiting for the Overfiend's coming so they can destroy him. Now the two start a battle to see if the Overfiend survives or not. The humans, though, have no knowledge of what is about to happen.
UROTSUKIDOJI: LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND is definitely worth a rental, even if just to see what this film is all about. UROTSUKIDOJI is available on Anime 18 videocassette and may now be available at a video store near you. The version that I saw is the English language version. The voices listed are those of the English language version, I assume that the Japanese version has different voice talents. The video cassette also mentions the conclusion to the film, UROTSUKIDOJI 2: LEGEND OF THE DEMON WOMB coming soon. This film is Japanese animation at it's best, but a word of warning, like the videocassette box states in big lettering, this film is not for children.
The animation for this film is extremely well done, much better than what most U.S. studios are putting out. It is animated so that it looks quite realistic, down to putting "sunlight" on the "camera lens". These small details make the film more enjoyable to watch.
The story, if nothing else, is certainly an interesting one. I don't think I have ever seen anything like this film before. I found the story to be a gripping one, filled with surprise twists and pleasing ideas. The film does run about fifteen minutes too long for the material it has. The characters don't get developed really well, but that doesn't hurt the film too much.
-------- Ken Johnson blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews