Duel Review #534 - Blade Of The Phantom Master Movie

Duel Review is brought to you by Spiderwolf.com On today's Duel Review it's Blade of the Phantom Master. I'm RJ and I'm Nick let's get to it. Hey everybody today is August 1st and we're taking a look at the anime movie Blade of the Phantom Master. That's right and I don't really understand why it's called that because the Phantom Master doesn't really have a blade he has two guns I guess which doesn't count as a blade but anyway this came out in 2004 and in fact it's a cross between it's like a they they joined together it was like a Japanese studio and a Korean studio they joined together to put this together um and it's based off of the does it qualify as a comic or would it be considered a manga no well yeah I mean a comic comic manga it's kind of that in-between thing and it basically goes over two and a half story arcs right right uh and so basically it's based on the Korean folktale and forgive me if if I'm forgetting this uh incorrectly or well forgetting it correctly I guess but it's based on the the legend of Chun-Hyung uh the the Korean tale um and it's a very interesting story essentially what you have is you have these people known as Amon what are they Amon um Amonosa yeah Amonosa so you have Amonosis who wander around and they're like just wandering heroes and the main character that we have whose name is um Monsu his character is an anti-hero and that he doesn't really want to help people but he feels every now and then compelled to I guess basically what he does is while he's helping these people he's yelling at them he's berating them he's like you should really be helping yourselves if you don't like what's happening to you stand up and do something about it so I like that character I like him and his ability as an Amon Amonosa is that he can summon these really weird looking masked kind of this army of people with giant swords and they're really cool and they have these cool abilities the phantoms yeah the phantoms the phantom master well he's the phantom master than the phantom so it is just pretty much that it was a it was a simple short movie 86 minutes somewhere so what did you think of it yeah I liked it this is one of those ones that actually made me feel like I should really check out this comic cuz cuz yes it is kind of just this chunk yeah it feels like a long episode that's what I was gonna say and so there's there's more you know that I want to know but having said that the guy's a total dick he's a real dick but you kind of understand some of it but but I don't know I don't know how much of that also is misinterpretation like cultural thing because I know Korean folktales don't always make sense to me and so I don't maybe they are ideas of a hero also don't make sense to me I don't know how much translates or not so I want to be fair but I do you know like him but you know he has I forget what they call it but he's a there every Aminosa is supposed to have no family but is allowed one you know like body guard or Sando yeah and so she I don't want to spoil anything but he ends up getting this girl very you know quiet kind of shy girl but she can kick some ass and there are things that happen to her that you are privy to that make her very like wow I feel really bad for her like what's you know what's her deal and they definitely don't pull any punches as far as like dressing them you know the girls in this are all kind of weird SMM me a little bit yeah which I like but it carries that connotation of her past and he's such a dick to her it's like dude don't don't you think she deserves a better treatment right but you know she's obviously an awesome person so whatever so so yes there's like this Western bit that I just want him to be a little nicer to her yeah goodness sakes and he and as far as as far as the Western but he is more Western than everyone else there even the way he dresses kind of Western but as far as that goes as far as his personality goes the way that I see it is as an Aminosa he sees like the worst in people you know like I said he doesn't he expects people to take care of themselves and not you know have him be the mid there maybe you wouldn't really know that until you know he's one of those guys that it's like well I won't tell you to do this I will treat you such a poorly way that you'll want to do it right which can be understood you know it's understandable but it's just like dude just just tell him I'm just tell you know it's like cuz he's like he's trying to help them but he's like you get you know if you get on my bad side I'll kill you you know yeah but I do I do like this anime I think it's a lot of fun I think there's a lot of things going on and it is kind of just that slice that I want to know the greater picture Aminosa they have like four different levels and this is in a time where the Aminosa is kind of dying so the first two levels no longer exist apparently I've done you know a little reading afterwards and the third and fourth are which he is a third and he has this medallion with three horses on it and he can summon these phantoms or whatever the fourth ones even more powerful which I'm sure he runs to and to in the comic not so much here but anyway and then I think it was interesting that they did so much with the the mandrake root which they pronounce Manda rock a and this which I've never heard before so it's kind of cool anyway well that's probably how they pronounce it in Korea or Japan I don't know I don't even know where it's indigenous to honestly it's just a man you know we get a little bit of English mandrake stuff you know whatever it's interesting yes and there are a lot there's a lot to like about it there's a few points where it's just kind of it does seem old enough but new enough right no like it does seem dated where it's like pulling it towards like ninja scroll not quite that old but kind of that sort of thing and then there are there are like 3d myths about it that makes it feel more the newer generation we watched it and dubbed or at least I did and the English acting is great yes you'll again recognize most everybody yep um yeah I just I guess I wish there was just more and it was one of those things I just kind of found because I was trying to find a movie to watch because I can't always devote you know time series right we would have done attack on Titan yeah we were we're trying to do that it's it's hard for me especially because it's all subtitled right now I can't get a dubbed version which I don't think there is right yeah and it's so visually pleasing that I have to watch every episode like twice I mean like I'm a fast enough reader but there are just things I want to just sit and appreciate I don't have to read and then like glance or like peripheral vision rely on that to see what's going on so so I but I'm loving the series so we'll get to that yes but in the meantime we decided to do a movie and yeah I'm glad we did because I didn't really know about it and I really enjoy it well that's interesting I I don't think I liked it as much as you did I I liked it if if this was a TV series you know just an anime series on that you can watch each episode I think that would make more sense and I think I would be more compelled to watch well of course it would be great if there's more yeah yeah absolutely but at least it has an ending as far as well as far as this movie goes it felt like such a long drawn-out episode that I kind of especially in the middle I was just like right around the mandrake part you know once that once that really started to kick what's happens gears about a third of the way through right right yeah so so basically the story is you know based on the comics it's like the first story and then somewhere shortly after the first story so it's not like the second or third it's like the fourth story in that they kind of tie this movie into so so yeah you have two kind of episodes kind of hanging in there one very short one very long but the long drawn-out one I almost fell asleep watching it because parts of it were slow and I just it was just too long for me as far as I had no problem because it was episodic in nature and I was expecting more of a movie if it was like more action-packed more you know more story driven as far as you know character emotional pieces that then they'd be interested but it all it was was a sensitive essentially a scenario and then how to solve the scenario and that's kind of I if it's a movie I want more out of it I guess is what I'm saying okay I thought it was you can unique enough it totally captured my attention I didn't have any issues with it huh so I don't think it's like you have to watch this but I think hey it's a pretty good movie and it'll make you want to read the car yes I agree with that I do want to read the comics more because there was a lot of interesting stuff in there and I want more of the story I just wish they put more of the story into the movie as opposed to just kind of those two parts I guess all right is there anything else to say I mean the art is again it's just slightly dated I think what it's great yeah I like the art I think the art is uh is pretty damn good considering what I said this was 2004 so considering I really I really dig the art I but yeah it's not it's not perfect but it is pretty damn good and the voice acting like you said so yeah I love the the evil you know like Ninja Chick yeah he's awesome but there's no real story that that's the whole thing is this is kind of this thing and I guess I appreciate that they didn't try to cram so much into one movie because a lot of movies do do that and I appreciate that it actually has an ending but it does live in this larger world that you'll never be privy to unless you read a comic so but that's kind of like you know we should you be used to that because anime does that all the time yeah it's the thing where they're like hey now that you care about these characters we're gonna stop the anime and you need to go pick up the manga which you know if you can then great but I'm not made of money you know yeah I think that's interesting that that they're they're sit they're promoting the sales of their manga as opposed to the anime I mean I guess anime is obviously more costly to produce but I think I think I would think that it would make more money than the manga in the end so yeah I don't know about in Japan because there's so much competition yeah until it becomes strong in other markets which you know it's still kind of fledgling here that's the fact that you're watching this is great but yeah you need to tell your friends I mean I'm telling my friends you know watch anime anime is cool it is pretty awesome anyway so I think it's I think it's worth a look into you know you should be able to I mean it's fairly consistent if you watch the first 10 15 minutes or that even the trailer you should be able to you know tell if you're gonna like it or not yeah yeah and it's not like an insult where you know again it has an ending it's not like what happens I don't know that was a total waste of time you know it's like okay this ended you know yep it was a self-contained movie episode I guess it really feels like an episode to me I'm sorry all right guys well we are getting to a lot of your recommendations yeah we just did a lot of them are long so you know we're starting now and it'll be a little while but thank you for those please keep them coming and leave us comments thanks for watching please subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow our great playlist game labs been a lot of fun yes it has and please leave comments we love comments and you can help support us by buying our wares at spiderwolf.com that's right t-shirts a car game art print short stories and and if you're on Facebook so are we so find us and friend us and if I'm online I'll chat with you and we're blogging you can follow me Fisk37.tumblr.com blogging as characters releasing character sheets little bits about my world that I've created for the 10 plus years starting to leak it out there so go take a look if you like it share it support me that way and I'm on tumblr at nicholasbach.tumblr.com where I'm putting out short stories poetry and anything else I feel like putting out all right guys see you later please work coming up next time it's aah zombies peace out yatches