Here you’ll find gallons of action, philosophical undertones, and sizable armaments involved - set alight with manic abandon.
Kiddie stuff this most certainly is not.
With equally big gun anime production houses Production I.G and Bandai Visual working together here (along with one Mamoru Oshii) there was never any real doubt about the grown-up nature of this material or the quality of the animation.
Add to the military hardware and action a tall, dark, silent-type protagonist, a mysterious, unlikely femme fatale whos a member of a terrorist organization, government-condoned death squads, post-modern German World War 2 helmets, gasmasks, full-on body armor, and – hidden amidst all this – some overt references to the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.
Penned by Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) as part of his Kerberos saga, the alternate reality late 1950s story underpins Oshii’s earlier live-action film Stray Dog (1991) – a movie which starred actor Yoshikatsu Fujiki, who here returns to voice our hero Kazuki Fuse.
Fujiki also starred in Oshii’s more recent live-action movie Assault Girls (2009) and his presence is all the more reason that you should watch the movie in the original Japanese dub with English subtitles, rather than opting for the easy-listening local lingo.
The depth of talent involved in this production is guaranteed to smack around anyone vaguely interested in anime.
Kenji Kamiyama (later the director of TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) worked as sequence/animation director, the character designs (based on director Hiroyuki Okiura’s originals) were embellished on by Tetsuya Nishio (a key animator on Millennium Actress and FLCL) and you’ll also find Hiromasa Ogura - the man behind the surprisingly cool background art in Drawer Hobs (2011).
Jin-Roh’s superb music is composed by Hajime Mizoguchi – one of Japan’s leading musicians in the ‘80s and Yoko Kanno’s ex-hubbie; Kanno herself moonlights as the pianist here.
Given that director Okiura has only just released his second movie (A Letter to Momo, which played the festival circuit), it’s timely to check out his thirteen year old classic. Okiura was 33 when Jin-Roh was released, and he also worked on key animation and character designs for Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Blood: The Last Vampire, Patlabor 2, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence and Magnetic Rose.
“Jin-Roh is one of the most stunning movies I’ve ever experienced, period,” says independent film-maker Toshiaki Yamashite. “Each time I watch it I walk away with more. It’s a work of genius.”
Amidst all the angst and bullets it’s a typical Oshii-style yarn: mind-boggling and ultimately mind-blowing stuff, with Fuse himself striking a note as anime’s most elusive male lead.
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade images © 1999 Mamoru Oshii / BANDAI VISUAL / Production I.G All Rights Reserved
