Note: This review is based on the broadcast of King of Thorn movie in the Cinema Sunshine of Ikebukuro.
Quote:
We ourselves might be just a dream seen by someone else.
Originally drawn as manga by Iwahara Yuuji and later adapted to anime form by Katayama Kazuyoshi (Argento Soma) King of Thorn[/b] is best described as a survival horror in a movie form. If you are not aware of what that means, then just think of Resident Evil or the Cube... A bunch of charismatic characters get trapped in a den full of vicious monsters or/and sinister traps and it's up to their wits and physical prowess to get out of that hellhole alive. Ibara Ou is set in a near future where a lethal sickness "Medusa" terrifies the whole of humanity. Once you are infected, you turn into a stone after a couple of days and lethality rate is 100%, so, yeah, it's not particularly something you'd want to play with. Anyway, the government devises a plan to save humanity from the threat by basically putting people to 100 year long cold sleep until the virus, or whatever that causes the sickness, will be gone. Our characters, are of course, part of the gang which is put to sleep... and, when they get up - they find that the new fauna which surrounds them isn't particularly friendly and has a sweet tooth for human meat.
It goes without saying that the visuals of the movie are high tech, I mean, it's a relatively new movie what else could you expect. However the fact that the musical score is very well applied makes the overall audio-visual experience close to fantastic, especially if you are watching the thing in the theaters. Scenario itself, though slightly rushed at times, is very well thought out and proves that King of Thorn is not only fine gory survival horror material, but also a nice SF to boot (though I got the feeling that some more complex things weren't explained as scientifically as one would like). Other than that, thanks to the movie format, the cast of the characters aren't particularly fleshed out. Some guys get killed off before you can say huh and only two (including the main character) get some sort of a backdrop. However, weak characters isn't something new for movies so it didn't really intervene with my experience much, maybe except for the fact that I felt that of the some characters lack originality and, well, charisma. Nonetheless, King of the Thorn is a story centered movie and if you have it for profound SF plots and some really surprising twists - this movie is something you want to watch.
Animation: 8/10
Animation by Sunrise is, as I have already mentioned, just as good as you would expect from a movie made in 2009. Backgrounds being certainly the strongest part, I literally vowed at some sights of the castle and later all these thorns going through it giving it not only a high tech, but also a somewhat surreal artistic feeling. Anyway, whatever is going on in the background, it's detailed and well drawn, there is really little to reprove in this particular part. Same goes for the fluidity and inbetweens, I couldn't find a single unnatural gesture in the whole movie so all I can say is that, yeah, it's cool. However, what I wasn't particularly impressed with were the relatively generic character designs. The cast didn't feel particularly high tech next to the magnificent backgrounds and what's more important everyone looked kind of, well, simple. I guess it makes sense since the cast is just a bunch of average people trapped in a hellhole, but given it's an anime I expected to see something more imaginative than a black skinned cop, tattooed hoodlum and... just a kid. Anyway, even then the overall visual value of the show is impressive, and frankly, it makes it already worth watching just for it's gape awing backgrounds.
Sound: 7/10
Music in King of Thorns is very nice to the ears, if slightly repetitive. There is this one solemn theme which is played over and over in like every extremely dramatic high scale moment and I must admit I never really got tired of it... rather I was expecting to hear more of it all the time. There is one particular scene near the end where they use that theme along with some magnificent high-tech animation of destruction and thorns moving in an artistic fashion successfully making me open my mouth wide in the cinema. However, save for that single theme other music which applies to BGM is, well, atmospheric at best... having watched the movie yesterday I can't recall any of these melodies anymore... but, well, it still does work for the mood, so I guess it's okay. Other than that, I wasn't particularly impressed by the work of Seiyuu. Yeah, I recognized some big names in the cast, but they didn't talk enough to be worthy of mention. Lately I get the feeling that Seiyuu actually try harder when they are put into TV series, I mean, I almost missed the performance of Kawasumi Ayako even though I usually can't help but drool over her voice.
Story: 7/10
I must commend them for putting such a heavy and twist-rich story to movie format, however, at the same time I can't help but feel it could have been much better if it had more time develop. The first half of the show is concentrated on survival horror and frankly, the things are advancing and guys from our cast are discarded way too fast for this anime's own good. I mean I couldn't even say huh? and half of the cast was already killed off. The gore and action scenes, however, are tense and delicious, if massacres are your thing then you'll be drooling all over. Anyway, the other half of the movie is relatively heavy SF with explanations behind what exactly is the Medusa illness, what were the reasons behind the cold sleep, conspiracies and so on. Frankly. the second part of the movie surpassed my original expectations for it, and, probably, my Japanese language level to some extent as well. I get the feeling I never exactly caught how and why humans were infected by Medusa, though I did caught its nature. I'll re-watch the movie one day to check if I really missed it, or was it just not explained well. Anyway, other than that all the details in the movie make sense, twists are really surprising and SF which goes on in there is certainly imaginative. I got the feeling, however, that some of the more complex stuff lacked scientific explanations, but if you can live with your SF not showing you chemical formulas I don't think it will become much of a problem for you. Overall, the plot of King of Thorns is profound and interesting, albeit slightly rushed.
Characters: 5/10
Characters, however, are the part which this movie is weakest at. Not only most of the guys don't get backdrops, they are not interesting from the beginning to boot. Main character is introverted, somewhat socially repressed girl, we have a black skinned cop with a high sense justice, tattooed hoodlum who appears to enjoy killing stuff, a boring kid who only talks about how monsters remind him of his computer games, a maternal figure for the kid who pretty much does nothing else but just looks over him, a scientific guy and an old crank who only serves just to put some old geezer complaints in conversations. That's about it. The only guy I thought off as relatively cool was the tattooed bastard, but it was just because he was massacring monsters left and right... and, yeah, had something of a backdrop. Also, the movie having that much content in the plot didn't really have enough time to flesh its characters well, so, especially at the beginning some of the conversations of the characters sound a little bit unnatural. They become attached to each other way too fast than you would normally expect from someone who just woke after a supposed hundred years of sleep. Give them some time to freak out dammit, what kind of nerves do you need to have to start thinking about escape plans just five minutes out of your bed and after being attacked by some never seen before beasts. You get used to the conversations pretty fast though, and one third into the movie the feeling of unnaturalness disappears so it's not really that much of a big deal. Anyway, even then, I couldn't find a single guy to care about, but I suppose it can't be helped in a movie of this kind.
Value: 6/10
Yeah, the visuals and some of the music which accompanies them are astounding, but I must say the show loses half of this charm once you know all of its secrets and twists, because, that's exactly what it does best. I might re-watch it one day, but not anytime soon.
- Conclusion[/u]:[/b] King of Thorn is not only a fine survival horror material with lots of gore and action, it's also a profound SF story deep inside. If any of the three ring your bells - then watch this movie and you won't be disappointed. Heck, it's worth to watch it just for its audio-visual combination, some scenes are really burnt into my mind and will linger in it for long. It might not become your favourite and I admit there are many movies out there which do their things even better, but nonetheless, King of Thorn is among the movies which are very well worth watching and certainly wont become a waste of time. If you'd ask what other stuff did King of Thorn remind me off, I'd say rather than anime it's more similar to some live action movies, like, The Cube.
