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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Rent | 7 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 7 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:47#1552] | |
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(Rent-/ Watch+) Like Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies, Rail of the Star is a historical film exploring how Japanese civilians are effected by events in World War II. Here, the movie explores a family living in Japan-occupied Korea during the war and later finding themselves having to flee the northern part of the country after the war ends with the country occupied by the Soviet Union and falling under the influence of communism. With the Koreans back in control of their country, Chitose and her family find themselves thrown out of their homes by the North Korean military and forced to live in an internment house. Not wanting to be treated as third-class citizens, Chitose's family and a bunch of other Japanese decide to travel down to South Korea (having connections to Americans) so they can be assured passage back to their home country. I might as well address the major issue of Rail of the Star in that it felt like the movie was quite a bit watered down in exploring the struggles of Chitose and her family. While the film does believably depict the hostilities between Koreans and Japanese with the latter's occupation within Korea, the film is obviously showing a level of restraint in going too far with showing how harsh life was with the Japanese in Korea during post-World War II. Sure Chitose and her family are kicked out of their home, but they manage to comfortably live in the internment house without much in the way of prejudice and they only get a slap on the wrist in the couple occasions they get caught by Korean military forces while trying to escape to the 38th parallel. Outside of the death of Chitose's younger sister from disease, no one is shot or killed onscreen, which kind of kills some of the believability of seeing the harsh realities of life for the Japanese in the mid-1940s compared to Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies. The movie does offer enough depth on Chitose and her family for me to care about them, but the watering down of its war theme does kill much of the suspense in their later struggles. While I won't bash Rail of the Star as badly as Nyuu-chan did for its major flaw, this is still one of the more weaker historical titles I've seen from anime since it was too hesitant in believably depicting the harsh struggles of the Japanese being in a country no longer under their government's influence. Last updated Friday, March 29 2013. Created Friday, March 29 2013. | ||||||||
| Avoid | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 2 |
 Barry
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[series:47#122] | |
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I'm generally very interested in historic anime such ash Barefoot Gen or The Grave of the Fireflies, so when I saw this title in the bargain bin at the Right Stuf for six bucks I thought, "What the hell?" and bought it. I should have kept my money. And I'll tell you why. For the sake of convenince, I'm skipping over the details about the visual and audio aspects of this film and get straight to what I think is it's main problem: the story. (Actually, the sound and visuals were all pretty ordinary, not too bad, but not that great either.) What struck me as odd about this movie is there seems to be a profound lack of conflict to make the story even remotely interesting. Seriously, I can't say that main characters hardly faced any sort of opposition at all. Here's what happens. Chitose's younger sister dies early on in the film. Sadness is abound, but quickly forgotten. Chitose has a run-in with a down-trodden Korean lad and helps him out of a pond where he's just been tossed by some angry Japanese schoolyard bullies. Touching. Next, Chitose's nursemaid, also a Korean, is fired because Chitose accidentally sits down on a knitting needle she left lying around and ends up having to become a prostitute. At this point I'm thinking, "Well, maybe Chitose sees the plight of the Korean people and makes some child-like gesture to help them out. That would be pretty cute, I guess." Nah. No such thing happens. I'm a little dissappointed, but then I think, "Well, this movie is supposed to be about the suffering of the Japanese who are getting the results of their selfish land-conquering. Something deep like that will probably happen." Nah. None of that, either. The War begins. Chitose's dad is drafted into the Japanese army and goes off to war. There are a few months of tension and then he returns, discharged because he was sick. Came home without a scratch. Which is all well and good, but doesn't make for much in the way of drama. After the war is over, the Koreans and their new Russian alies take charge and force the Japanese out of thei fashionable homes and into two or three internment houses. Better than concentration camps, I suppose. Of course, the strong-willed Japanese escape and stow away on a train heading south to the 38th Parallel and, supposedly, freedom. They are disovered at the first stop by armed Russians. They get caught, right? How exciting!... no, actually, they run away quite easily into the woods where they move on foot to a small village. At the village, they find a Korean man who knows the easiest route to their freedom. Oh, the suspense! How do they get the information out of him? Well, actually, he just tells them. Why? I don't know. So, they are led to a hill they must run over to freedom. Of course, this place is watched 24/7 by Russian snipers. How dangerous! how do they ever escape? Well, they just run over the hill, actually. A few shots are fired, but they al make it over okay. The next thing you know, they're all on a boat home and the movie is over. So... there you have it. By the end of this film, I just had this profound feeling that I had just wasted two hours and six good dollars. I can't really recommend this anime to anyone who likes their drama-type movie to come with an interesting story. Maybe there's some kind of obscure Japanese film technique at work here, but I found this work totally boring and uninspired. Avoid it. Last updated Sunday, March 04 2001. Created Sunday, March 04 2001. | ||||||||
Other Sites
| Name | URL |
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| Official Madhouse Japanese Series Web Site | http://www.madhouse.co.jp/works/w_ohoshisama.html |
