LogFAQs > #941059605

26. Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade

Charon: 13
Jona: 15
Genny: 24
Inviso: 26
Red: 29
Johnbobb: 33
Karo: 37

Total: 178

Charon: Dark and haunting, I think after seeing this that it shouldn't have been cut from the first list. This is a well-crafted, thoughtful film with a lot to say and a clever way of saying it. Alternate history films are always pretty interesting to me; to see a take on the real world that's inspired by events that you are familiar with in history but then spinning what happened after those events in a different direction always creates a lot of truly unique content. As far as the film itself goes, I liked the Red Riding Hood influence and the use of the actual, original story instead of the "good ending" one most Americans are more familiar with. I was pleased to see Henmi get his comeuppance in the end.

Jona: beginning of the movie is incredible and really sets you up for what the movie is about. The relationship between Fuse and Kei is interesting, especially everything thats going on in the background, and it leads to an ending thats quite intense. Jin-Roh has a slow and deliberate pace which both helps and hurts the film. Its not the most exciting movie but still really fascinating.

Genny: Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade had some exquisite action sequences and even contained some splices of horror, reminiscent of Perfect Blue. However with all its many twists and turns the plot got a little difficult to follow. Now maybe I'm just too dense for this kind of story of espionage and betrayal, but I could've been happier with less of that. Upon looking up the person who directed this I'm not surprised the plot was hard to follow, however I didn't find this one as cerebral or, if I'm being honest, as pretentious as the film on the previous anime ranking project.

Inviso: I dont know why, but this movie just didnt intrigue me. Like, I can see why it would be enjoyable. It has a solid plot, and the metaphor of wolves and humans, while hammered in SUPER HARD, is still handled well enough to make logical sense. There are decent twists and turns in the plot, namely that the terrorists ultimately dont matter, and the whole story winds up being a war between two factions of the police, each trying to fight for their own survival and/or supremacy. I will say that the plot is a little difficult to follow for these reasons though, as its hard to know who is betraying who, and for what purpose. Like, I know the main characters buddy sets him upbut Im not ENTIRELY sure why, or how said buddy just happened to be part of a secret organization of spiesor something? Anyway, the movie is okay. Nothing spectacular, but not terrible either. Just okay.

Red: Part of a slew of movies here with a phisophy of it being better to be pretty than having any actual substance. Action sequences are a mask for achieving any sort of interesting or even consistent plot. This one tries a bit harder than the rest, but at the end of the day actual characterization to anyone finishes shallow and its thrown in with some weird red riding hood parallel that never really hits a mark to any sort of satisfaction.

Johnbobb: There's a lot to love here, but I'm also not willing to say I loved it. The art is great, as is the music, dreary tone, heavy themes. It starts especially strong and ends especially strong, but really struggles with pacing for the bulk of the film. That paired with the heavyhandedness of the Little Red Riding Hood parallel keeps this from being the incredible classic it clealy wants to be.

Karo: What It Is:
Police and terrorists clash in an alternate universe Japan.

What I Think:
The world presented in this film is nowhere near as engrossing or entertaining as the one in Mamoru Oshii's most famous work, and the story plods on for what seems like an eternity before pretty much ending up right back where it started.
So Fuse is like this elite soldier/policeman who has a young terrorist girl blow herself up in front of him due to being unable to pull the trigger, and after a lot of boring police politics he ends up meeting the dead girl's (also terrorist) sister. He starts to care about her, but then he just ends up blowing her away randomly cause his boss said so and the movie ends on the touching note of Fuse will always be a good little bitch deep down and people cant really change. Yay.
After watching more of Oshii's work I am convinced that the aberration in his filmography is not Sky Crawlers, but rather Ghost in the Shell, and he is primarily a creator of dull pointless movies that think they are deeper than they really are. Such as this one.

Score: 40/100

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Congrats to azuarc on being really good at predicting stuff