Black Jack |
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Have you ever wondered why your
neighbor across the street was much better at basketball
than you? Or how about why your friend beats you at Risk
so many times? Well, did you ever think that this wasn't
the result of years of practice, but a large corporate
conspiracy? Maybe It's just my inferiority complex
talking, but Blackjack really spoke to me. From the title you might guess wrong, but Black Jack has nothing to do with the similarly-named card game. Written by the legendary Osamu Tezuka, who is the considered the father of anime and manga, Black Jack is the story of a renegade surgeon who is in the business primarily to save lives. Looking like a mix between Dracula and The Phantom of the Opera, Blackjack lives with his daughter/small girl accomplice Pinoko in seclusion from the rest of the world. The story starts at the Olympics, where record after record is mysteriously being broken. People who weren't even professional athletes are ending up with gold medals in their hands by the end of the day. Soon after, however, these athletes come down with a disease that makes them as weak as infants, and they reach the state where they can barely lift their heads off of the hospital beds. Enter Blackjack, who is called by a mysterious woman multiple times to try and help these people. He refuses, and only agrees when Pinoko is kidnaped. Well, kidnaped in the sense that she is being held in Hawaii, going to amusement parks, and staying at a resort on the beach... Why can't anyone kidnap me? The plot thickens when Blackjack joins the team to help save the former athletes. Here, he meets a member of the MSJ, a human rights organization, who fills him in a little on some of the patients. It seems that this "virus" the athletes had was the result of experimentation, trying to create a new, superhuman race. In exchange for money and fame, these people allowed themselves to be experimented on, taking the virus in the form of a drug. Blackjack reaches his breaking point when he finds out that a girl he had operated on had unknowingly received a blood transfusion with the virus, under hospital orders. There are many twists and turns throughout the movie, and giving away too much would spoil it. The last chunk of the movie deals with Blackjack looking for the cure for this virus in a desolate part of the world. I'll just say that I wasn't too impressed by the ending. It seemed a little far-fetched for the world that Blackjack is set in. Also, a note to protagonists of any work of fiction : Never, ever drink anything given to you by your enemy! It's the oldest trick in the book. When I look at Blackjack, there's one thing I could probably do without. That thing is Pinoko. Pinoko, or Plotoko as I call her, was pretty much useless in this movie. She's the plucky, happy-go-lucky, large-headed, big-eyed cute little tyke of the movie, whose only purpose in the story was to further the plot by getting Blackjack to join the team of professionals working on the athletes. To me, this was just lazy writing. I guess you could say that she was around to give Blackjack more of a human side, but in my opinion she was annoying and not needed. I would also like to say that if you're the least bit squeamish, Blackjack is not the anime for you. I consider myself totally desensitized by blood and guts in movies, but a few scenes in Blackjack(most notably the surgery scenes) had me squirming. One could say that this is the mark of excellent animation. The realism is graphic, but these scenes do not dominate the entire movie. The video transfer was excellent in some places, and below average in others. This sort of inconsistency can be distracting, but thankfully these bad looking scenes were few and far between. I'll also note that Blackjack is presented in its original ratio of 1.85 : 1, but no anamorphic transfer is available. Perhaps I'm asking too much for an anime DVD, and but Princess Mononoke was anamorphic and I wish more companies would follow this excellent example. The animation is excellent, with a movie budget and a recent release date you can't get much better than this. I was not too big a fan of the character design, it was good in some places but many characters clashed with the style they were trying to present. Overall, Blackjack is a great movie in the visuals department. I was surprised to see that a 5.1 sound mix was made just for the dub of Blackjack. After listening to it, I have to say that I was impressed. The mix is great, with some nice directional effects, booming bass, and surround effects. I didn't even mind listening to the dub with the 5.1 mix on. The dub didn't really stand out, but it was really well done. Aside from a few minor voices(like the Laurel and Hardy rip-offs) there were really no stupid dialogue moments that made me cringe. The presentation was nice, with an attractive cover that looked like an original theatrical poster. No real special features on this disc were included except for the previews, some of live-action films. However, I've got to point out that some thought went into the icky title menu. When I mean icky, in this case I mean good. I've never seen a DVD that let you choose options on top of a beating heart... At least I hope that's a heart. It's been a while since I viewed an anime movie, and Blackjack was a nice refresher. Osamu Tezuka manages to wrap a brilliant story and animation around great characters. Blackjack may not be a great movie for repeated viewings, but it's highly enjoyable if you're looking for something different for your anime fix. -Bob Mackey |
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