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REVIEW: The Empire of Corpses BD+DVD




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Karasu-Lacryma



Joined: 20 Feb 2015
Posts: 112
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 11:42 am Reply with quote
I was rather surprised to see this in my local, rural Walmart's two aisles of movies (only other anime there was Naruto), is Funimation increasing their distribution or was this just a fluke?
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Shenl742



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1524
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 12:15 pm Reply with quote
I really think it needs to be mentioned how tonally out of the place the climax is. spoiler[The rest of the movie skirts that line around pseudo-science and metaphysics, but when the villain enacts their plan at the end, we more or less see [i]literal magic happen[i/]. With green ectoplasm and everywhere, and crystalline structures growing for god knows what reason.] It's like from an entirely different movie.

Also a major tonal shift: The post-credit scene. spoiler[The film proper ends on a very ominous, ambiguous not...but then at the end of credits and we get a narration and a whole epilogue scene that pretty much says, "Hey you know that 'final' scene? Well don't worry about it, THIS is how everything ended up! But we're not going to tell you how it got to this point".]

The rest of the movie was okay, but the last 15 minutes was a whole lot of "what the hell?"
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MoonPhase1



Joined: 29 Nov 2007
Posts: 492
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 12:17 pm Reply with quote
Karasu-Lacryma wrote:
I was rather surprised to see this in my local, rural Walmart's two aisles of movies (only other anime there was Naruto), is Funimation increasing their distribution or was this just a fluke?


I noticed they had both the Blu-ray and DVD version which is practically unheard of for Wal-Mart unless it's a Ghibli movie.

My Wal-Mart also has Sailor Moon, Dragonball GT, Dragonball Z Resurrection F, both seasons of Tokyo Ghoul, Assassination Classroom, Seraph Of The End, Dragonball(original series) movies, Pokemon, the Marvel Anime series and Eureka Seven Astral Ocean which are all DVD-only titles there.

For Blu-ray there is also The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Psycho-Pass The Movie, The Boy And The Beast (all Blu-ray combo packs only) and Only Yesterday is both Blu-ray combo pack and a standard DVD release.

So yeah Wal-Mart is getting a little better, but still needs room for improvement. Like would be nice if more Sentai titles showed up.
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Lordfan



Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 12
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 12:17 pm Reply with quote
The review mentioned Houko Kuwashima as Hadaly. This is inaccurate. Hanazawa Kana played Hadaly, and Kuwashima played Moneypenny.
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
Posts: 2597
Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 1:30 pm Reply with quote
^Thank you, yes - I meant to be singling out Kana Hanazawa and got my KH's confused.

The tonal shift didn't actually bother me - it felt in line with Aleister Crowley and his ilk's Victorian spiritualism. (Marie Corelli is who I was more reminded of, actually.) It also appeared to me that spoiler[in the intervening years between Watson and Holmes meeting up corpse engineering had been stopped in order to put the world back in line with the one we know. That was slightly more troubling to me, but honestly, I wasn't expecting the happy ending, so I was glad to go with it.]
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One-Eye



Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Posts: 2260
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 1:39 pm Reply with quote
review wrote:
The result is that the film haunts you, creeping into your thoughts unexpectedly days after you've seen it.

Heh? Really? For myself I was bored for days after seeing it. I felt the story didn't really make me care about the characters. Also sometimes a problem I have with stories that try to include literary or historical references is that the author becomes enamored with the idea and tries to shoe horn as many of these references as they can. They confuse the part with the whole, a clever idea with actually telling a satisfying story. At least this is how I felt about Empire of Corpses. I may give it another view, because I was very tired at the time I saw it and perhaps it was my dulled faculty that was unimpressed. I know Harmony got a poor review on ANN (I think the reviewer missed some things and I don't wholly agree with that one either), but I preferred that Itoh story to this one.
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Razor/Edge



Joined: 05 Jun 2015
Posts: 607
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 4:20 pm Reply with quote
Glad to see this getting positive attention. While I didn't quite like this one as much as Harmony, both films are quite good. I just hope the last one doesn't suffer from the animation studio change.
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
Posts: 2597
Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 6:59 pm Reply with quote
@One-Eye

I can see where you're coming from. Honestly, this movie was practically tailor-made for my interests - Victoriana, literature, fantasy/sci fi, and Corelli-esque spiritualism. If that's not your cup of tea, this would be a drag.
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Snomaster1
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Joined: 31 Aug 2011
Posts: 2790
PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 3:50 am Reply with quote
This is interesting. An anime studio doing it's own version of the "Frankenstein" story. I'll keep my eyes open for this. It sounds like something that would make some interesting viewing. Stuff like this says to me that it's a shame that there aren't any more video rental places out there. This sounds like it would make a good rental.
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OwlBiceps



Joined: 19 Jul 2016
Posts: 119
PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 4:16 am Reply with quote
Snomaster1 wrote:
This is interesting. An anime studio doing it's own version of the "Frankenstein" story.


It wasn't WIT's take on Frankenstein. It was WIT's take of Itoh's take on Frankenstein.
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unready



Joined: 07 Jun 2009
Posts: 395
Location: Illinois, USA
PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 4:52 am Reply with quote
Quote:
... with the exception of Hadaly, the lone female protagonist, everything is accurate ...

Hadaly is derived, like Watson, from a work of fiction published around the time the story in this movie supposedly takes place. She's the subject of the science fiction story L'Ève Future, published in 1886, in which Thomas Edison is also a principal character.

For comparison, the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, was published in 1887.

And just for good measure, spoiler[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea] was published in 1870, although Thomas Edison (who was alive and inventing stuff in New Jersey, the opposite side of the country from San Fransisco, at the time) wasn't credited in it for inventing spoiler[the Nautilus].

More bizarre, I thought, were all the references to You Only Live Twice (the 1967 film with Sean Connery, not the 1964 Ian Fleming novel on which it's sort of based).

But setting aside all the "Can you spot the references?" moments, the logic of the story struck me as a bit uneven. Some things are explained in great detail, but other things, like why spoiler[Karamazov essentially zombified himself] or why spoiler[corpses go on a zombie rampage for human flesh when they hear a certain sound] or why spoiler[they fall over dead when Hadaly or US Grant -yes, the US Civil War president- stomp their feet] make no sense. But above all, if it's okay to raise the dead and enslave them, why is restoring their souls forbidden technology? I'd also like to understand how the power to restore souls to dead people is also spoiler[the critical piece of knowledge needed to turn the whole human population of the planet spontaneously into zombies]. Ultimately, I think the true answer is: because the plot needs it that way.
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gwdone



Joined: 01 May 2008
Posts: 272
PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 4:55 am Reply with quote
I remember pre-ordering this title after seeing the artwork and the trailer. The review sums it up much better than I can, but my two cents is all about the artwork and sticking to the format. For me when I'm watching a serious anime I sort of want it to stay that way. Comic relief only goes so far, plus it's a totally worn to the ground template of hollybore aka hollywood.

I also love the modern twist to 'The Empire of Corpses' that shows how knowing your history can be implemented in a very respectful yet modern way.

I can only give it nothing but a thumbs up for both the anime and the review itself. Rebecca sure knows her stuff on this one, and I'm very thankful!! Great job!!!!
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Bowl of Lentils



Joined: 08 Oct 2015
Posts: 7
PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 3:30 pm Reply with quote
Saw Empire of Corpses a few days ago and was really unimpressed by it. The visuals are great and the setting is full of potential but the film just felt bloated. The movie falls into the trap that I've seen a lot of anime adventure films fall into where it introduces too many characters, tries to tackle one too many themes, and just ends with a world ending event that is so huge it is impossible to get invested in.

Personally I'd give Empire of Corpses a low C, or even a D, and throw into the pile of other forgettable adventure films, such as Brave Story, Welcome to the Space Show or FUSE. Wish we had more films like the recent Expelled From Paradise that have a strong focus and manageable scope.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5286
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 4:51 pm Reply with quote
Saw it today, really liked it. I've heard some bad things about it, like how it covers too many things. But thankfully that wasn't the case, the film is about corpses, and it is the sole focus throughout the film.
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