Review for Project Itoh: Empire of Corpses - Collector's Edition

Introduction

You’re probably wondering what Project Itoh is at this point. Actually the correct question is ‘who is Project Itoh?’ Itoh Keikaku was the pen name of acclaimed Japanese SF author Itoh Satoshi, and Itoh Keikaku translates as Project Itoh. He died of cancer in 2009 at the tragically young age of 34, having written three original novels as well as a Metal Gear Solid novel. His Genocidal Organ and Harmony have been ranked as two of the best Japanese sci-fi novels of the decade. When you have work of that importance, an anime adaptation will need a little extra. In 2015, the noitaminA anime broadcast slot was cut in half, as they decided to make six theatrical films as well for release that year, including adaptations of all three Project Itoh works. In the end, only five were completed, and All the Anime have licensed four of them, including both of the Project Itoh films completed thus far (Genocidal Organ has a projected theatrical release date of 2017). Harmony will be released in the UK in a few months, but we kick off first with The Empire of Corpses.


I have to say that the premise behind The Empire of Corpses certainly intrigued me. It takes a literary legend back to its evolutionary beginning, and then gives it a modern spin. We’re talking Frankenstein of course. Mary Shelley’s novel itself reinvented the golem legend, applying scientific rationale to what was originally a mystical idea, the idea that corpses could be re-animated; the dead could be brought back to life, although there would inevitably be a price to pay. The golem origin itself is lost behind the popularity of Frankenstein, and all subsequent tales of technology gone wrong, whether it be robots, cyborgs or genetic engineering is all ascribed to Frankenstein as their literary forebear. The Empire of Corpses instead goes right back to Frankenstein and spins that story in a new direction.


The year is 1878, and this is a world where Victor Frankenstein succeeded in his experiments in re-vivification. He raised the dead, created The One, although he alone managed to imbue his creation with a soul, giving him free will, the ability to think, to reason, to speak. That was a hundred years previously, and any attempt to replicate that initial success has been deemed illegal. For raising the dead is big business, and you don’t want your product possessing a soul. The dead make perfect cannon fodder for armies, indeed they do all the grunt work of soldiering, and in the private sector, if you want simple tasks done like manual labour or service, it’s just a matter of installing the right necroware.


The thing about taboos is that there’s always someone willing to break them. John Watson’s collaborated with his friend Friday on studying death, and when Friday died, Watson tried to bring him back with his soul intact, with a novel way of installing necroware. That didn’t quite work, although it immediately came to the attention of the authorities. They gave Watson one choice at maintaining his freedom, to locate and retrieve the lost writings of Victor Frankenstein. And so begins a globe spanning adventure for Watson and his reanimated friend Friday, but it turns out that Victor’s Notes are more dangerous than mere musings on a page, and lie at the heart of a conspiracy a hundred years in the making, a conspiracy that will change the world. And whoever gets the notes will want to change the world to their particular design...

Picture

The Empire of Corpses gets a 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p transfer on this Blu-ray disc. This isn’t a feature laden disc, so the film gets plenty of room to breathe. The image is clear and sharp throughout, the detail levels come across consistently well, and there are no visible problems with compression, or even digital banding to my eye. It’s rich, lush, and vivid animation, with something always happening on screen (with a lot of CG help to animate crowd sequences. There are a lot of zombies in this film), and given its Victorian era setting, the film adopts a sepia tone for its visuals, sticking to golds and browns and greens. The character designs work well, while the prevalence of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, the accoutrements of revivification and installing necroware, all give the film a very Steampunk feel.

The images in this review were kindly supplied by All the Anime.

Sound

You have the choice between Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround English and Japanese with subtitles and signs locked to the appropriate track. The dialogue is clear throughout, the action represented well, and the surround track really does immerse you into the action, just the way a big feature film should. The Japanese is very much the way to go here, with the actors well suited to their roles. As for the English dub, I have a very English problem with it. This is a film with several English characters, speaking in English accents. If you’re dubbing a high profile film like this, then by Jove, hire some native English actors, don’t just use the usual Funimation actor pool and get them to fake the English accent. You can probably get away with it with US audiences, but UK audiences will pick up on that straight away, and anything that throws you out of the film isn’t good. By the same token, I wouldn’t be surprised if Russian fans raise an eyebrow or two at the accents for the Russian characters.

Extras

Funimation have gone the extra mile with the disc authoring though. I think this is the first anime disc I have seen that uses Java extensively for its menus. My Blu-ray player throws up a Network Connection message when the disc is inserted, the animated menu unfolds like a mainstream Hollywood disc, and it’s also a disc that holds position in player memory after it’s ejected. This is also a triple play release from All the Anime, with Blu-ray and DVD, and for the first time that I can recall, a digital copy of the film.

Insert the disc and it plays that annoying Funimation NOW trailer.

You get a couple of promos for the film, and a theatrical trailer on the disc, but the sole substantial extra is the Funimation Short Empire of Corpses, which lasts 7:43, and in it there’s a jokey interview with ADR Director Mike McFarland, and voice cast members, J. Michael Tatum, Morgan Garrett, and Jason Liebrecht.

Finally there are Funimation trailers for Psycho-Pass the Movie, Tokyo Ghoul √A, Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign, Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie, Assassination Classroom, Evangelion 3.33, Terror in Resonance, and Tokyo ESP.

Conclusion

You know a film has problems if you spend the time comparing it unfavourably to other films instead of watching it intently. And that’s what happened to me with Empire of Corpses, a film that continued to disappoint me, despite all that it has going for it. Besides the visual and audio aesthetic; it is a fine looking film, it also has my favourite brand of sci-fi to it, the idea of taking just a small twist in society and running with it, extrapolating a world that develops from that one change. Here’s it’s the idea of reanimating corpses, and from it unfolds a world that’s built on the business of exploiting the dead. Into this mix it throws in the traditional questions of the nature of humanity, the definition of the soul, and at what point do people start playing God. It revisits the original Frankenstein story, but overlays it with modern storytelling tropes taken from robot tales, and stories of genetic engineering gone mad. So we get an elaborate method of reanimating the dead, adding even more faux science and procedure, the use of Analytical Engines to install Necroware. It’s a blend of old and new that should be very interesting.


It doesn’t quite pull it off though. John Watson gets caught trying to bring back the soul of his re-animated friend Friday, an unspeakable taboo, and his only option is to accept the mission to locate Victor Frankenstein’s notes, and so begins a James Bond style globe spanning adventure that takes them from England to India to Afghanistan to the US and back again. And James Bond really is the operative word here, and not just because of some of the characters (Watson is recruited by M, who has a secretary named Moneypenny, and as for Friday’s codename...), it’s also the style of storytelling. They have a very simple mission, to recover the Notes, but the mystery leads them from stepping stone to stepping stone, the action sequences getting more and more thrilling, the stakes getting higher and higher, until the climax, where the ultimate villain is revealed, and his world shattering plan is put into motion, which only our heroes can foil.


The problem is that for all its quality premise, the possibilities of depth and philosophical debate, this is no Blade Runner. The Empire of Corpses instead eschews its premise to merely deliver a competent action movie; the twists and turns that unfold, the revelations regarding the reanimation technology, don’t really impact the story, there’s not enough weight to give them meaning. It picks and chooses little aspects that will raise the eyebrows, make you tie something in to your world experience, such as the suicide zombies, but it will fail to build on these ideas. And in the end, it commits the cardinal anime movie crime of leaving its conclusion oblique, making you wonder what just happened, and there’s no explanation as to the consequences that result in the epilogue.


By far the biggest thing that The Empire of Corpses is lacking though is a sense of humour. Admittedly the character of Burnaby looks as if he enjoys life, but the rest of the cast do not. This is a film that takes itself too seriously for both the subject matter and the lightweight nature of the story. It could do with a few James Bond style quips just to break the monotone nature of the script. On top of that, the monochrome nature of the visuals also fails to enliven the screen. I was talking about comparing it to other movies, and Katsuhiro Otomo’s Steamboy does a far better job of capturing the period, and really integrating the Steampunk into the story. The Empire of Corpses merely looks like the Victorian era with a few zombie trappings.


My final bugbear is the brush with history, both real and fictional, as the film populates its cast with characters like Watson and Holmes, M and Moneypenny, Ulysses S. Grant and more. It’s cute, but again it’s inconsequential, as these characters (other than M and Moneypenny) fail to carry any of their contexts with them. And that really got me wishing that I was watching an alternative. If you want a James Bond style globe-trotting adventure, populated by historical personages, where the search for a book will determine the fate of the world, watch Read or Die - The OVA. The Empire of Corpses comes out as a poor second best in comparison, merely a competent zombie action movie.