Today marked the end of my too-brief stay in Montreal and for my sole screening before hitting the road back to Toronto I opted for an animated film I knew nothing whatsoever about going in - Phantom Master: Dark Hero From Ruined Empire.
The film has garnered some notice as it is the first ever collaboration on an animated feature film between Korean and Japanese film makers. Korean animation is on a major upswing at the moment and may be poised to burst on to the international scene over the next few years just as their live action films have recently and the Japanese, at least, are taken notice and getting on board early.
Bulky though it may be the film's title sums things up nicely. The film is set in the fallen empire of Jushin, a rich and benevolent land laid low by some hinted at - though never explicitly explained - treachery. At its peak Jushin employed a select group of wandering, supernaturally gifted warriors known as Amen-Osa whose job was to roam the empire policing the regional lords. If a local ruler became oppressive it feel to the Amen-Oshi to topple that lord and restore peace to the people.
With the empire toppled the Amen-Oshi have disbanded, been killed or otherwise disappeared. All except one. Munsu, tired and bitter, continues to roam the land righting wrongs when he comes across them, wanting only to discover the traitor who destroyed his beloved empire and put that traitor to death. In his travels Munsu is attacked by cannibalistic desert goblins, raises an army of spirit warriors against a corrupt lord, and frees a skilled and scantily clad female warrior who joins him as his self-appointed bodyguard before coming across a young boy begging for his help, a boy carrying special leaves that may be linked to the fall of Jushin.
While Phantom Master is certainly benefitting from it's cross cultural status and drawing more attention than it would if it were the sole production of either Japan or Korea that is not to say that it doesn't have its strong points. It is beautifully animated using a wide range of techniques and effects and has an excellent basic premise. Munsu is a compelling lead character - there is a good bit of both Spike Spiegel and the Lone Wolf in him - and the basic conflict between his despair and determination, his sense of charity and self interest makes for interesting, and often surprising viewing. Munsu is capable of tender hearted emotion and shockingly callous - and graphic - violence in equal measures and you can never be quite certain which response you will get from him.
The film stumbles a little in some script areas, at times playing it too safe and too close to anime conventions, at others failing to clearly explain things that need explaining. That second part could very well be a matter of translation, though, as there are some clear translation errors throughout. For example, Chunhyan, the beautiful young fighter, is described as having bitten off her own tongue in a suicide attempt before we meet her but can speak perfectly clearly when she is freed which makes me suspect that the subtitles should have read that she attempted to swallow her own tongue rather than that she bit it off.
More than anything Phantom Master feels like an episode of a television series stretched out to feature length. In fact this thing is so clearly set up to become a continuing series that if it was not intended at least partially to serve as a launch event for a television or OVA series then I will eat my shirt. Literally, live and on camera. It doesn't quite reach the level we demand of animated features these days but as a piece of television it is really quite good.