Fucking Awesome. Two words that easily describe this epic samurai tale. Took me a while to get around to watching this as my audio drivers at home didn't like the movie and wouldn't play right and I didn't have a big enough flash drive to take it to work until today. $20 4gig flash drives rock. So anyways Sword of the Strangers is up there as one of the great movies that I've watched this year.
Brief Summary: This feature length animated film follows a young boy Kotarou his dog and a nameless ronin samurai as they escape from Chinese Ming thugs and their lord out to use the boy's blood in a ritual to grant the Emperor eternal life. In the process there are clashes between the Japanese Feudal lord, his warriors and the Chinese Mings. One of the Mings is actually a tall blond blue eyed foreigner who is only looking for a worthy opponent to fight and couldn't care less about the Emperor or the elixir to eternal life. The end is a huge grudge match with all three sides coming to a head and the life of young Kotarou hanging in the balance.
My Opinion: Like I said before this was an awesome film and really enjoyed it. Sure it's not original in story but the telling of the story sets it apart. Then you have the fantastic animation from Studio Bones. It absolutely looks beautiful. While this definitely is not for the week of mind as a Samurai slasher flick goes this is really bloody but not nearly as over the top as one would expect from an animated film. I was looking around for more information on this and found out that it is licensed by Bandai Entertainment and was apparently released somewhere during July of this year. I never heard of it's release until I started looking for more information about it. I'll definitely be looking for this on DVD from Netflix. I have to give this two thumbs way up and highly recommend this film for anyone who likes Samurai tales and just great animated films in general.
