Sun 14 Jul 2019
An Animated Movie Review vt David Vineyard: JIN ROH, THE WOLF BRIGADE. (1999).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , SF & Fantasy films[3] Comments
JIN ROH, THE WOLF BRIGADE. Japan, 1999. Voices (in the English version): Michael Dobson, Moneca Stori, Colin Murdock, Maggie Blue O’Hara. [From Wikipedia: “The film is the third adaptation of Mamoru Oshii’s ‘Kerberos saga’ manga, Kerberos Panzer Cop, after the two live-action films: The Red Spectacles and StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops released in 1987 and 1991 in Japanese theaters.”] Directed by Hiroyuki Okiyura.
Japanese anime can be as stylized and foreign to Western audiences as Kabuki theater or Chinese Opera in some cases, and tied in with the cultural differences, it can be a hurdle for older viewers in the US who didn’t grow up with it to follow, but it is also a universal storytelling medium that doesn’t always need language to tell its stories, and a well-told story is a well told story regardless of medium.
Jin Roh, the Wolf Brigade is set in an alternate Post-War setting where Japan is beset by native terrorists and protected by Special Units of Police trained as jin roh “human wolves.†There are developing tensions between the special units and the regular police and they are as much at each other’s throats as the terrorists.
When jin roh Kazuki Fuse (pronounced Fu-say) hesitates to kill a young female courier who then triggers a deadly explosion, it gives the police something to use against the special units, and they act quickly to discipline Fuse, sending him back to training under an officer whose son is with the regular police. Then Fuse, still suffering flashbacks to that night and guilt-filled hallucinations, meets and falls for the dead girl’s sister, who bears her an uncanny resemblance.
Done in realistic style animation, the story is a strong mix of noir, action, and Le Carre style intrigue, where nothing and no one is quite telling the truth, and loyalties shift on treacherous moral sands.
This is as grim and dark as any live action film, as morally complex, and as unrelenting. It is also beautifully told, with strong elements visually and easily identifiable characters whose animated faces reveal their character as well as many actors.
Unlike most anime, other than the set-up there is little in the way of science fiction or fantasy elements here, rather a powerful dystopian future, handsomely rendered and deftly told with as many twists as any thriller.
The film was submitted for an Academy Award in animation, but wasn’t qualified because it first played on Japanese television. It is not a story you will easily forget once seen.
July 14th, 2019 at 8:18 pm
I have been a fan of anime for over forty years. I tend to watch series rather than films so I don’t remember this one well.
What amazes me most with anime is how great it is when creating worlds. Such as JIN-ROH where wolves and people co-exist yet in the world the film creates with its world’s own rules and reality is believable.
July 14th, 2019 at 9:58 pm
Quite coincidentally, this is a subject that David and I have been talking about recently, particularly in the comments following my review of the pulp story “In the Grip of the Griffin,” by J. Allan Dunn:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=62497#comments
We both think at Dunn was successful in making a hideous masked pulp villain’s long-running series of confrontations with his stalwart nemesis, Gordon Manning, realistic, but only on the stories own terms.
Not so successful, in my opinion, was Susan Dunlap’s police procedural, TOO CLOSE TO THE EDGE, in which I wasn’t convinced that the way the police handled the case was up to par:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=62528#comments
And as you say, movies such as JIN-ROH in particular have to succeed or fail on how well it presents its tale in an interesting and consistent fashion. I’ve not seen it, but it sounds as though it does.
July 16th, 2019 at 8:13 pm
Any Sf elements in the plot are in the setting, it’s presented as quietly as a LeCarre plot, and as complex with no one trusting anyone else, and the enemy as likely to be an ally as a criminal.
I found the ending far too grim, but it is true to the characters and makes the tale a tragic one for me though I’m not sure the makers of the film found it so.