Review for Legend of the Millennium Dragon

Introduction

Sony used to release anime in the UK once upon a time. It was a rare event, but because of them, we do have films like Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika, Steamboy, Cowboy Bebop, Tekkonkinkreet and Memories in the UK. But things have been quiescent on the Sony front for the last couple of years when it comes to anime, and it’s not hard to see the reason why. For one thing, in this Blu-ray age, selling to a small and increasingly fragmented audience, the economies of scale that a company like Sony are used to just don’t work. You don’t run off 10,000 Blu-rays of an anime movie and expect it to sell out, unless it’s Akira. The second thing might just be down to the titles that Sony chose for its last dip of the toe into UK anime. I’m willing to give anything a shot, but not even I was willing to take a chance on the Russian Japanese co-production of First Squad, which was one of their last two releases. The second seemed like a fairer, if more conventional bet, Legend of the Millennium Dragon, although I did wait for a convenient sale before taking that chance.


Jun Tendo is a timid boy who goes out of his way to avoid stressful situations. When there is an opportunity to do the right thing, he chooses not to choose. He’s been keeping his head down this way ever since his father did the right thing, and saved someone’s life at a level crossing, only to die in the process. A chance encounter with a demon sends Jun seeking shelter in a temple, where he’s met by the enigmatic priest Gen’un, only it’s an encounter that will totally change his life.


Gen’un tells him about the temple and its past, a story that comes to life and overwhelms Jun. When he wakes up, Jun is 1000 years in the past, during the Heian period of history, a time that was reputed to be peaceful and tranquil. The world he wakes up in is anything but, with the capital besieged by the demonic Oni. Gen-un is there, and he tells Jun that he sought him through history, the boy destined by blood to awaken the legendary dragon Orochi, the one power capable of defeating the Oni. But when Jun finally encounters one of the Oni, he doesn’t find a demon at all; he finds a pretty girl named Mizuha...

Picture

Legend of the Millennium Dragon gets the rare aspect ratio for anime of 2.35:1, presented on this Blu-ray at 1080p resolution. The image is clear and sharp throughout, with strong vivid colours, and smooth, fluid animation. Legend of the Millennium Dragon impresses with the quality of its artwork, the warm and engaging colour palette allows for some detailed and attractive backgrounds, the world design for both the modern era, and the Heian period scenes really comes across well. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the character designs, which are uniformly short and dumpy, almost as if they are SD comedy characters suddenly finding themselves in a dramatic story. Also, this is one of those productions where there is a whole lot of 3D CGI mixed in with traditional 2D animation, but the two styles don’t blend all that well.

Sound

The big choices here are DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English and Japanese, although DD 5.1 tracks in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai are also available, You have subtitles in all these languages (including a translated English track and an SDH English track, subtitles and dubtitles), as well as Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hindi, Korean, Norwegian, Swedish and Turkish.


I went with the Japanese audio and was happy enough, with the film’s action getting a suitably grand surround audio presentation, really placing the viewer in the action, although I did feel that the dialogue was a little low in the mix. The film’s music was initially impressive, blending in with the action, but once Jun travelled back in time, the Heian era action sequences suddenly developed rock and roll overtones that were a little jarring. The subtitles were free of typos and accurately timed. I gave the dub a quick try and found it to be fairly mediocre.

Extras

Legend of the Millennium Dragon comes in an Amaray style Blu-ray case, which has extra artwork on the inside of the sleeve, a little lost behind the blue plastic. The disc takes a while to load its animated menu, and I realised why when my player asked me if I wanted to resume the film. I bought the disc back last July, and gave it a quick spin to see if it worked, ejected it, and didn’t return to it until last night, which is how long it held the place I last stopped it at in memory. FF or REW during playback pops up a progress bar on screen while you watch the film, and there’s no way of getting rid of it. Thankfully pause doesn’t do the same.


You get some BD Live content linked from this disc, although I wouldn’t know what it would be. The only on disc extra is a concept art gallery, which you can click through, or set to run as a slideshow. You can appreciate the fantastic backgrounds without the film’s dumpy character designs in the way.

Conclusion

Character designs aside, Legend of the Millennium Dragon may be one of the most visually atmospheric anime (not made by Makoto Shinkai) that I have seen, and it really does come across well on Blu-ray as you would expect. I could watch those backgrounds endlessly, the level of detail and sheer artistry gone into making the ancient Heian era look so appealing. But you know that when the backgrounds in an anime are more interesting than the anime itself that you have problems, and I found Legend of the Millennium Dragon to be a dull and pointless exercise, an interesting time-travel concept wasted by lacklustre and thoughtless execution. If you want to see the Heian period in anime there are better and more rewarding ways to do so, and you can see some of the historical characters brought to life in this film explored with much more creativity and interest in shows like Otogi Zoshi, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, and even Tactics.


It’s an interesting if unoriginal premise, that of a modern boy falling into a fantasy land of magic and monsters, going on an adventure that reveals hidden and previously untapped potential and helps him grow as a person. Here it is a time travelling priest who calls on him to help defeat a demonic threat. The film also manages to spice things up with an unexpected twist that throws everything on its head. It should be great, fun, exciting and entertaining. It’s none of these things, as it manages to stay at a remove from the viewer with a rather thin and unconsidered approach to its story that fails to take advantage of any potential complexity, and with really underdeveloped and un-engaging characters that are difficult to believe in. You’d expect more of a culture shock reaction from a teenage boy suddenly finding himself in the middle ages, where people are busy cutting each other down with swords and arrows, but the only sop to time travel is poor Jun’s inability to get a signal for his phone back in 1000 AD.


The film just plods along, wasting its great visual aesthetic, the potential for reinventing historical characters, the germs of a decent story, any hope of emotional drama behind a thin, workmanlike and unfulfilling story. The conclusion of the film is such an anticlimax that it just didn’t register to me that the film had actually ended. There’s magic in this film alright, it has you wondering just what the point of the previous 98 minutes was. If you want this kind of story done right, look up Brave Story instead. Legend of the Millennium Dragon, along with First Squad, may just be why Sony aren’t releasing anime in the UK anymore.