X

Publisher
Manga Entertainment
Director
Rintaro
Production
Madhouse
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Film
Running time
100 mins
Year
1996

X

By Mark Bearden
23rd May 04

The following review of X has been written by a true blood, guts and gore fan, the following may scare little kiddies into crying and running for there mommy's, you have been warned.

At the end of 2000 years, a concluding battle is to take place to decide humanities future. Kamui Shirou's fate has been placed, he has returned to Tokyo, where he shall face the ultimate challenge of his life.

Meanwhile two ancient clans called the Dragon of the Earth who seek to cleanse the world by destroying all life and the Dragon of the Heaven who wish to save the world from destruction (i'll let you work out whose evil and good It was too hard for me to work out, only kidding.) Kamui Shirou must decide who to fight for, which side to join, but little does he know his choice will gravely alter the paths of his childhood friends Fuma and Kotori Monou...

X starts off with one of the most weirdest beginning I have ever seen for a manga video, it truly makes you wonder what is going on every minute of the film, its kind of strange in that respect as it doesn't tell much off the characters and there life stories, instead its non-stop action with magical tendencies.

Each character in the story have thier own element, i.e. water, wind, earth, fire. They use there power only after they make a protective barrier around the area they are in so that people do not get hurt. The battle scenes are simply too cool for words, although surprisingly short which is the only disappointment to me, the reason to this is due to the fact the other person fighting normally kills them in one blow (blood, guts flying everywhere mwhahaha)

The artwork used for X is simply amazing the animation of it just makes if feel more evil, it helps creates a dark and depressing atmosphere around all of the characters involved you just know something's going to happen to them, you know they wont last long, but still your going to be surprised when it happens as you wouldn't expect it to happen like that.

As for the sound for X it has its moment its nothing special that's what lets this film down the fact that where you feel there should be some music... there isn't any... just silence I think they were trying to set a mood, it just didn't work for me.

I would tell you so much more about X but... I did that to Huxley, he wasn't to thrilled to hear it from my mouth I tell you I feel he would have appreciated more if he found out from watching it. This film will leave a lot of unanswered questions in the viewers mind, they will also feel certain things should have been done differently... In closing I never did work out why this film was called X... I proberly never will, I also haven't enjoyed an anime this much since Urotsukidoji, this is a dark film, if your a happy go lucky ooo look at the pretty butterfly type of person you properly shouldn't see X, heck you shouldn't even be alive.

8/10

-- Mark Bearden 23rd May 04

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