Movie Review: Empire of the Corpses
Empire of the Corpses is a film directed by Ryoutarou Makihara (Hal) from Wit Studio. The film is the first in a three part series of movies based on the novels by award-winning writer, Project Itoh. The film was distributed in Japan by Toho and in North America by Funimation, two names you’re probably very familiar with. Toho is really the reason we have Godzilla today, Funimation is the largest distributor of anime in North America. Two very reputable names have gotten behind this obscure project and it won’t be much longer till it hits theaters for a limited release on April 19th and 20th. It’s only going to be in 60 theaters across the United States and Canada, so check with your local theaters and see if you can catch a screening. So without further ado, let’s jump into this review!
In Empire of the Corpses “In an alternate version of 19th century London, the world has been revolutionized by “corpse reanimation technology” creating armies of undead who serve the living as laborers across the globe.
In an attempt to revive his dearly departed friend, young medical student John Watson becomes obsessed with replicating the work of Dr.Victor Frankenstein – the legendary corpse engineer whose research produced the only re-animated corpse to possess a soul. But when his illegal experiments put him at odds with the British government, Watson is drafted into a worldwide race to find the lost notes of Victor Frankenstein before the secrets of the human soul fall into the wrong hands.”
Project Itoh, the writer of the source material has created a very interesting world here. It’s a twisted look at the world in the 19th century. Not only if Frankenstein were real, but is these experiments swept the world essentially creating armies of zombies. What they create aren’t really zombies though. They follow the command of humans, they just lack a soul and a ton of brain functionality along with it. You’ll get really strong steampunk vibes with this film along with a gothic touch as well. It’s very dark, it’s very serious, but there are also a lot of funny and lighthearted moments to help you catch a breath.
Empire of the Corpses is a beautiful film on many different levels. You’ll quickly notice that it is visually stunning and over the duration of the film you’ll take in the beautiful score. Every sound is crisp and every frame looks gorgeous. What I watched was the English dub, and I must admit I thought most of them did a great job, though Mike McFarland (Alexei) needs to work on that Russian accent. I wasn’t buying it.
Another great aspect of the film is that it feels very global. Anime’s roots are in Japan and as such you’ll often get that culture in the forefront. No problem with that at all, but this series is rooted in Britain and branches out to places like Japan, the United States, even Afghanistan. These places all come to life with the aforementioned visuals.
Where the movie started to lose me was with it’s story and characters. The running time of this movie was two hours and you really feel it. There is a lot of fat on this film. There are a lot of scenes I think could have been shaved off to provide a tighter experience. There is a ton of exposition in the beginning of the film. A lot of it is necessary to explain this world to the audience, but I think they beat you over the head with the same knowledge, almost as if they don’t have confidence in you to understand the information being put forward. Honestly, the story itself was pretty captivating for the first hour and twenty minutes, but it’s really the ending that got convoluted for me. It was partially saved by an intriguing villain whose motivation seems fitting for a story of this nature.
John Watson, our protagonist, is a pretty well rounded character. He develops well and has a satisfying arch. His relationship with Friday was really the most interesting part of the movie for me. Burnaby was also a great character. He was the comedic relief of the film but also played a pivotal role in some dramatic sequences. Every other character I could have done without. Nobody else really brought anything interesting to the table for me.
Overall, this movie really is worth checking out. There are a lot of cool and interesting ideas here and I’m genuinely curious to see how this world evolves as the story progresses. There is so much creativity wrapped up in so much beauty, it’s hard to look away. The problem is that the movie drags at some points. There are heavy dramatic moments in the film that I just adored as well as some funny moments to keep our heads above water. The action sequences were pretty standard, nothing to write home about. But despite the flaws, I think this is something I could see myself watching again. I can’t wait to see what’s next. If you’re looking for an anime experience that is a true breath of fresh air, look no further than Empire of the Corpses.
SCORE
Try to find Empire of the Corpses in a theater near you on April 19th and 20th!
Hi Ashley, thank you so much for reading and we love the feedback. Note that on that day we had 14th posts go up and only ten posts show on the front page, so it's possible the preview had already been archived by the time you got to it. One recommendation would be to add our RSS feed to your favorite news aggregator service like Feedly, this way you get all of the latest posts!