LogFAQs > #941433281

Inviso: If this movie was about thirty minutes shorter, I think I wouldve ranked it a considerable amount higher than I did. On paper, its interesting. You have this bear warrior whos undisciplined and thinks extremely highly of his abilities, yet he gets his ass beat when he tries to step to a REAL, trained warrior. Meanwhile, you have this kid whose mom died after she divorced his dad and separated them, so he winds up in foster care for reasons, and he runs away, only to wind up in the beast world. The kid, suffering from dad issues, and the bear, suffering from complete immaturity, play off each other, with Kyuuta teaching Kumatetsu how to dodge and rely less on brute force, while Kumatetsu teaches Kyuuta how to fight. Its a sweet story, and together, these two misfits work together to better one another.

This all culminates in Kyuuta eventually returning to the human world where he perhaps belongs, a rift is formed between the master and disciple, and Kyuuta storms off to the human world, where he realizes how out-of-place he is in that life. Kumatetsu, meanwhile, has to enter the arena to fight for the title of Grand Master, which was the original purpose of taking on a disciple in the first place. Without Kyuuta there to cheer him on and keep his head in the game however, Kumatetsu gets sloppy and gets his ass beat. Its only when Kyuuta pops up at the last second to offer words of encouragement that Kumatetsu turns the fight around and wins. If this was the ending, I would enjoy this movie a lot more. Its cheesy and cliched, sure, but sometimes clichs work for a reason.

Unfortunately, the movie goes WAY the fuck off the rails at that point. A second human characterthe adopted child of Kumatetsus opponentwho received VERY little in terms of characterization and development over the course of the movie, pops up and flings a sword into the victorious Kumatetsu. This is because, as has been repeated throughout the movie, humans all have darkness in their hearts. Kyuuta nearly lets the darkness overwhelm him with his desire for revenge, but he stops himself. And from that point on, I have no fucking clue what the point of the movie is. We introduce a weird antagonist for a story that feels VERY slapped on to the ending of the film, summoning ghost Moby Dick to fight Kyuuta in the real world. Its really dumb and REALLY hurts my enjoyment of the movie overall. The first three quarters of the film are enough to rank it this high, but stillWHY with that ending?

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Congrats to azuarc on being really good at predicting stuff