By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
October 26, 2001
Voices of:
Fuse (Michael Dobson)
Kei (Moneca Stori)
Henmi (Colin Murdock)
Viz Films/Tidepoint Pictures presents an animated film directed by Hiroyuki Okiura and written by Mamoru Oshii.
Running time: 102 minutes. No MPAA rating (depicts graphic violence). Opening today at the Village Theatre.
What if Japan had been occupied by Nazi Germany after World War II? “Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade” explores this possibility by presenting an alternative nation.
In this Japanese animated film, Tokyo is dark, bleak and industrial. The city is a war zone, with the police and military battling a small but well-trained group of elite terrorists who negotiate their way through the city’s sewer system. They employ women and children to act as decoys. They have all been trained to believe there is honor in dying for their cause.
“They will do anything to attain their ends,” an officer says. “They fail to see themselves as the criminals they are.”
Audiences won’t be able to help themselves from comparing this group to Osama bin Laden and his followers.
During one raid, Constable Fuse catches a frightened young school girl. He hesitates just long enough for her to detonate a bomb, which blows her up in the process.
He is haunted by this image which will change the course of his life. When he later meets a woman who says she is the girl’s older sister, he is both drawn to her and disturbed by her.
In Japanese, jin-roh literally means “man-wolf.” Fuse is a jin-roh. He is soft-spoken and seemingly follows orders without question. But on the inside, he is a predator as much as the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood” (a recurring theme in the film).
Unfortunately, we’re never told why this terrorist sect formed or for what they’re fighting. There are no heroes. We don’t know who to root for since the battles are calculated for bloodshed, rather than to illustrate a cause.
