STRANGER: MUKOU HADAN

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionStranger: Mukou Hadan
SPECIAL ActionStranger: Mukou Hadan Pilot Film

REVIEWS

• 

  AdmiralNyan

  90/100
  A Brilliant Exploration of the Duality of Death

  Sword of the Stranger takes place in Japan during the Sengoku Era (Age of Warring States, c. 1467 to c. 1568) and follows a young orphaned boy named Kotarō, and his doggie, Tobimaru, as they are being pursued by China’s Ming Dynasty warriors for unknown reasons. Along their journey, Kotarō and Tobimaru encounter Nanashi, an unnamed rōnin (master-less samurai warrior) who has vowed to never draw his sword again due to a dark and malevolent past. Through various plot happenings, Nanashi agrees to guide Kotarō and Tobimaru to a place of reprieve for the boy, thus building a deep bond along the way.

  Please note: there will be spoilers for the film in this review, which will be marked when they appear. Read with caution. Thank you.

  I am at a loss for where to begin with my review for this film because everything about it is so damn astounding. The premise, the animation (especially the action sequences), the music, the contemplative motifs—all of them work together to complement and enhance one another to build a film that is literally a masterpiece, never overshadowing one for the other. It is evocative, dark, and exquisitely revelatory of the era’s more twisted climates as well as human nature.

  On the surface, Sword and the Stranger is about relationships and making amends. We have a young boy who has no parental figure or mentor in his life. It’s just him and his puppy against the blazing world. Then Nanashi enters the picture and shows the boy what it’s like to have that warmth that stems from having a father. A bond formulates between the two between mindless bickering, lessons of horseback riding, and intimate revelations of each other’s melancholy past. You see two deeply lonely individuals come to terms with the fact that they may no longer have to be as such. A pure and basic story at its heart. However, the execution of said story is prolifically breath-taking.

  The film originally released in 2007, which was eleven years ago. BONES was doing fantastic work in terms of animation (Eureka Seven and Darker Than Black immediately come to mind) during this time, really testing out which bounds to push, and which ones weren’t up to par. With Sword of the Stranger, we are finally able to see their full potential as creators, as the film was one of the very first ones to utilise a seemingly flawless implementation of CGI graphics into hand-drawn cinematography to produce something that is sensationally fluid from one scene to the next, with vividly mind-blowing action sequences, character designs, and lush, splendidly detailed landscapes. From the opening scene, where rain and mud waltz in a flurry of defensive foot movements and swishing sword fighting to the serenely calming scene where Kotarō and Nanashi are riding horseback through the shores of a beach amid a backdrop of the setting sun. Both are culturally very Japanese in nature and highlight the best part about the animation: the details.

  The intricate focus on details is what ends up sealing in the film’s beauty and raising it to the level of masterpiece. Close-ups of rain drops preparing to land upon the forehead of a dying soldier, the slight movements of straw as another character’s hat is sliced open, the gentle caress of the wind upon the bloodied fabric that holds Nanashi’s sword snuggly within its sheath—these minute aspects are layered one on top of another on top of another to formulate such a smooth and all-encompassing watching experience. It is damn difficult not be drawn in by the animation, given how stunning it is. All of these things are further accompanied by the musical composition.

  There isn’t a lot of heavy or consistent music in Sword of the Stranger, which is another facet that is quite akin to Japanese aesthetics, uniquely of classic literature. If you have every read Haiku poems or anything by Bashō, these things will stand out to you almost instantly. It’s limited in quantity, but whenever it does make an appearance, it does so at pivotal points to the plot—when two warriors who are to battle to the death finally meet, or when Kotarō and Nanashi hit a note in their harmonising friendship—and instils within you a sense of profoundness, insidiously building up the tension and anticipation for the ultimate climax to come. So, it’s basic but brilliant. It’s intelligently psychological and gorgeously moving, more so when you contemplate the deeper meanings portrayed beneath all of the simple elegance of family and redemption.

  Spoilers ahead.

  Duality. This is my favourite thing about Sword of the Stranger. The consistent and multi-faceted exploration of the duality of death and what it means to be alive.

  The Ming Dynasty warriors all take a special type of drug that renders them literally immune to pain and torture, thus allowing them to fight and fight and fight until they no longer draw breath. Only one character—Luo Lang—working on the Chinese soldier’s side, refuses to partake in the drug. He is someone who searches for that rush that you can only get by feeling everything around you, specifically in battle. There is no feeling quite like the one you get when you are facing death in the face with the chance of having your heart stabbed through or your head lopped off to make you realise that you are truly alive. Numbing himself to this sensation is without question unacceptable and disrespectful.

  Then you have Nanashi. All he wants it to feel numb, to forget his past; to find some black, ugly corner where he can go die. He doesn’t take drugs to stifle his pain and suffering as he does this via alienation and avoidance. Feeling alive is the absolute last thing that he desires in the world because then it makes the sins of his past real. It makes all of the wrongs he’s done a ghost that he cannot run away from.

  This duality of death that you see—one where the idea of death is exhilarating and the very essence of why someone should live to their fullest capacity, and one where the idea of it is a welcome escape—is everywhere in the film; softly woven into the conversations between Nanashi and Kotarō; slipped in between the battles that the mysterious Chinese soldier has with others, as well as the ones that Nanashi has with Kotarō’s pursuers; even forged into the swords that both characters fight with.

  You see the duality outside of the two characters as well; a whisper in the overarching plot that’s never blatantly voiced, but meticulously implied. The Ming Warriors are sent on a mission that deals with a very twisted belief that the Chinese emperors of the dynasty were obsessed with—immortality—and this obsession was astoundingly anti-Confucian. During the Warring States period, within Confucianism death was viewed as something to be accepted and embraced, just as life was. If you didn’t understand how to live, you could never really understand death. Emperors were hell-bent on running away from death as much as they possibly could, thus defying this pivotal belief; a belief that their entire culture—at the time—and government was built upon.

  Luo-Lang was the perfect encapsulation of the Confucian ideal of life and death while the Emperor that he worked for and the warriors that surrounded him were the epitome of anti-Confucian belief. He was very much the walking, talking, sword-fighting personification of the dual-nature of death during the time period; two sides of a single coin, as it were.

  End Spoilers.

  When you take all of the motifs into account—as there are quite a few that I haven’t even mentioned here—while setting everything else aside for a moment, you will see that Sword of the Stranger is an amazing allegory for the struggles that both nations faced during the time period, particularly where the dynamics of leadership and the impoverished people, who are struggling because of said leadership, are concerned. The wrongs of the king are never worth the blood shed by the peasants to propitiate those wrongs.

  All in all, there has never been an anime that has ever come close to being what Sword of the Stranger is: a perfect blending of excellent storytelling, complex characters, flawless animation and visual cinematography, superb melodic structure, and true-to-era exploration of the political climate. It is provocative, emotional, intellectually pensive, and one of the finest works of art that I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing in my life.

  As someone who rarely gives out perfect scores (five out of five for books, or ten out of ten for cinematic media), I feel that giving this film anything less would be a disrespect to what it is and what it stands for. Sword of the Stranger is one of those fundamental creations that I can honestly say: they just don’t make them like this anymore.

  9 broken vows outta 10.

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• 

  RuneAgeMage

  50/100
  Awesome sword fights! Mediocre story.

  Sword of the stranger is a film well regarded for its incredible action animation. I am sure many over you interested in this film, will have seen the amazing Yutaka Nakamura sword duel at the end of the film. It is by far the best sword combat I have seen in animation.
  As an action film the story is passable. It's a simple tale about a mysterious boy, Kotaro, attempting to escape from the Chinese soldiers. After his escape, he happens across a nameless (Nanashi) ronin who agrees to act as a body guard for him, during his travels. Over the course of the film, the 2 come to share a close bond like that of a father and son or perhaps older and younger brother, which results in Nanashi saving him in the end; not for profit but for love.
  While I enjoyed the interactions between these 2, I think the story suffers from having far too many characters. There is more than half a dozen major villains in the story, from 3 different factions. Side characters form alliances and betray one another, which would be an interesting idea in theory, but the story never fleshes out their personalities, homelands, histories etc. So you end up watching these characters you know nothing about kill each other. It's cool to watch from an animation stand point but means very little narratively. The time wasted on these side characters could have been used to further develop the relationship between Nanashi and Kotaro, to flesh out their characters and perhaps to flesh the main antagonist more.
  As it is now, Nanashi is basically a generic ronin: quiet, reserved, standoffish, with a mysterious dark past. Kotaro on the other hand is the generic spunky kid character. They're both functional, perhaps even likeable but more could have been done to make them stand out. It would likewise explain why Nanashi opens up to Kotaro so suddenly.
  The villains, likewise, are extremely flat. The Chinese characters are essentially drones following the emperor's wishes. The emperor isn't so much a character as much as he is a plot device to kick the story in motion. He's just some guy we're vaguely made aware of that believes he can become immortal by consuming Kotaro's blood. Why? Who knows. The only villain that stands out in this series is Luo Lang the European mercenary. He is likewise a flat character. His purpose in life is essentially seeking a worthy opponent. He's fun to watch because of his controlled yet extremely aggressive combat style and his cool design but outside of that, there's really nothing to him.
  The world isn't really fleshed out beyond occurring in a vague version of Japan during the Ming Dynasty (perhaps the Sengoku period for Japan). I think this would be fine if the plot and characters were more tightly written but without that, the bland setting is more egregious as it does nothing but act as nice background art for the story.
  The story meanders a lot during the mid section. The introduction immediately establishes the threat and the main characters however afterwards, very little occurs to move the plot along until Kotaro is captured once more. The beginning and ending of the film are quite enjoyable however, very little of substance occurs in the hour or so in the middle of the film.
  If you enjoyed this film and are looking for an alternative, I would recommend Seirei no Moribito. It has a similar premise but with more fleshed out world and characters.

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• 

  TheAnimeBingeWatcher

  85/100
  Pure entertainment. A smorgasboard of the best swordfights ever put to animation.

  Despite what my reviews may lead you to believe at times, I liking having fun while watching anime. It is, in fact, the primary reason why I watch anime. Beyond all the intricacies of craft I could discuss, all the subtleties of storytelling I could dig into, the reason I love this medium so much is how much I enjoy simply watching it. Creating fun is just as important a skill for writers to learn as crafting characters and worlds, writing dialogue, structuring plots, and so on. It takes work to make a story genuinely fun. It takes effort to bring an audience to the edge of their seat, laughing and cheering and gasping at the events unfolding before them. Fun is important. Fun matters. So while Sword of the Stranger isn’t the deepest or most complex movie I’ve ever seen, it accomplishes something far more important: it let me have so much goddamn fun watching it. And that’s more than enough for me to consider it a triumphant success.

  The story is your standard Japanese feudal-era samurai flick; there’s a hotheaded kid and a badass loner samurai, and they have to team up to go from one place to the next, pursued by evil samurai all the way. There are more specific details, but that’s really the long and short of it. Kotaro is being pursued by a corrupt lord and his samurai warriors for an unknown reason, and a chance encounter brings him into contact with an unnamed samurai mercenary who fights without drawing his sword thanks to past atrocities he was forced to commit. They don’t get along, but the kid hires him to be his bodyguard and escort him to a far-off temple where he believes he’ll find sanctuary. Naturally, the journey takes them across the rural landscape of feudal Japan, where they do battle with bandits, enemy samurai, and an elite group of Chinese mercenaries with their own reasons for pursuing the kid. There’s also a background political subplot detailing the skullduggery between the Chinese and Japanese forces to explain why they’re chasing Kotaro, with some light mysticism thrown in for good measure regarding a search for an immortality-granting drug. It’s probably a little too convoluted for its own good, but it doesn’t matter that much to begin with, so no great loss. As long as it allows the story to throw in more action setpieces between a wide variety of fighting styles, that’s all it needs to do.

  Because great googly moogly, the action in this film is fucking incredible. It’s a smorgasboard of the best hand-to-hand swordfights ever put to animation, courtesy of the always-excellent Studio Bones pooling all their talent into every last clash of steel. The choreography, the use of locations during fights, the speed and brutality- these battles are as bloody and vicious as real swordfights- the fantastic cinematography and editing, and spectacular animation across the board make every last fight, however brief, an absolute treat to behold. And with all the different fighting styles on display- swordsmanship, spear-fighting, double-wielding, master archers, chain weapons, bombs and throwing knives- every fight allows for a unique match-up of combatants that keeps things fresh and exciting to the very end. And for the climax, Sword of the Stranger pulls out all the stops and throws every single character together into a massive siege that constantly tops itself with cool moment after cool moment, spilling buckets of blood in endlessly entertaining ways, all coming to a head for a single duel between two master swordsman that has rightly gone down in anime history as one of this medium’s finest fight scenes. It. Is. Fucking. AWESOME.

  But that’s not to say the story is bad either. In fact, I think what makes Sword of the Stranger work so well is that between all the spectacular action, it’s just a damn good version of the classic Lone Wolf and Cub-type store. Kotaro and the nameless samurai have great chemistry together, and watching them learn to trust each other is really charming. We don’t get too much information about the dark pasts they’ve both endured, but we get enough to understand the pain they’re going through, and how this bond is helping both of them process their trauma. It’s a really touching portrayal of found family, especially when you throw in the adorable, badass dog Tobimaru who tags along with them and tears the throats out of any bandit unlucky enough to cross his path. He is truly Best Boy, and I’ll fight anyone who disagrees. On a base level, you just enjoy being with these characters. You’re invested in their struggle, you want to see them succeed, and that investment effortlessly carries you through their journey before paying off in a beautiful climactic moment that solidifies the strength of their bond. Even the side characters, underdeveloped though they are, all make strong impressions thanks to great designs, strong performances, and a handful of cool moments apiece that stick in your mind and make sure you remember their faces, even if you can’t remember their names. And outside the fight scenes, Bones’ excellent production values- strong character acting, gorgeous background art, a great sense of space and dimension- ensure that this movie is always fun to at least look at.

  This may be a rather simple review, but don’t take that simplicity as an insult against Sword of the Stranger. It’s a very simple film, after all, and that’s to its benefit. It’s exactly what it says on the tin, a charming samurai adventure with great animation, incredible fights scenes, an emotionally resonant core, and a constant sense of fun that makes it an absolute delight to watch. If you can stomach the goriness of the fight scenes- because make no mistake, the violence in this movie is gnarly- then Sword of the Stranger is a must-watch for anyone looking for a good time.

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