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Escaflowne - The Movie Actor: Kazuki Akane Number of Items: 1 Format: Animated, Color, Widescreen, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Studio: Bandai Entertainment Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2004-03-02 Buy from Amazon

From Amazon.com Escaflowne is a sprawling adventure saga that infuses sword-and-sorcery and mecha elements into the popular "magical girl" anime genre. The girl is Hitomi Kanzaki (voice by Kelly Sheridan), a withdrawn teenager who wishes she could just leave everything behind and vanish. When she's magically transported to the alternate world of Gaia, she gets her wish--in spades. The dashing Van (Kirby Morrow) of the White Dragon Clan is pitted against his twisted brother Folken (Paul Dobson), the leader of the Black Dragon Clan, in a succession war that threatens the very existence of Gaia. Hitomi is hailed as the long-awaited "Wing Goddess," and her power over the invincible dragon-mecha suit Escaflowne confirms her status. Although the tangled story line has been pared down, the feature remains a reworking of the 26-part TV series The Vision of Escaflowne, which aired briefly on Fox Kids and is available on DVD. Fans of the television series will find that many of the familiar characters have been redesigned and reduced to minor roles, among them Allen, Princess Millerna, Dryden, Merle, Naria, and Eriya. Some of the story's more outré elements have been dropped, but there are still more prophecies, conflicts, and relationships than the filmmakers can resolve satisfactorily in 96 minutes, despite a pat happy ending. Escaflowne boasts some impressive action sequences, which Kazuki Akane directs with panache. The film opens with a spectacular sword fight, as Van single-handedly dispatches the guards on an enemy airship to capture Escaflowne. MPAA rating: PG-13. Contains considerable violence. --Charles Solomon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 152 Average rating: 4.0 "How are people rating this 5 stars" I should first say that I have not watched the series, but will follow that up by saying that this movie has not persuaded me to do so. I am a casual anime fan and for reference will say that the anime's I have enjoyed include Dragon Ball Z, Outlaw star, Cow boy bebop and Ninja Scroll. If you have only seen 2 movies in your life time and the other one was "Big top Pee-Wee", then maybe (and I stress maybe) I could understand a 5 star review. If you are a die hard fan of anime and if all it takes is a couple of bloody scenes this may be for you. If you are 15 years old you might be impressed with this. However if you expect depth of character, story evolution and strong plot, skip this. In a nut shell some girl is depressed and wants to disappear/Die, what ever, so she disappears and shows up in Gaea as the Wing Goddess. Two separate factions have been warring with each other over a dragon armor suit that holds the fate of the world. The girl is the key to the suit in a way it goes to whom ever she decides; the good guys get it the end. Believe me when I say this is the better telling of that story and the less painful one. The Good: a couple of good fight scenes and the animation were pretty good. The Bad: The tone of a movie is very important and this story was way over dramatized. The characters aren't developed at all so you can't really bring your self to care about them, or want to pay attention to them. The movie felt like they were trying to squeeze the content of a long draw out series into 95 minutes and they failed miserably. I considered turning this off several time but felt that I should finish and form a complete opinion about it. Well I have and it aint good. "Not to be mean But there's a true absence of a development" Let me begin by listing all the great things about the movie. 1. It is incredibly beautiful animation 2. The music is amazing 3. I happen to like how the movie is darker than the tv series The Things I don't like about the movie: 1. The characters are not developed at all 2. You get the feeling your only skimming the surface, like a starving person being tost a crumb of bread 3. It almost seems that every seen in the movie was stopped half way through the writting process. Ok you may have see that I gave this moive a 2 out of 5, well that is becuase of the story line and plot.The story line of any movie is much more important to me than the animation. The movie left me with a odd emptiness from begining to end. I just kept thinking there has to be more. But there wasn't. The best way I could describe it would be to say it was as if the movie were a lost child at the carnival that no matter how hard it looked it just couldn't find its parents. This movie is for the person who likes action and no character development fluff. But if you are the person who likes well developed characters and story line please don't buy it rent it first. I'm not saying its a bad movie by any means, just a bit empty for me.Just one more thing the Escaflowne series is very very good don't let any bad reviews of the movie discurage you from getting the series! "Bad reviews: are you kids!" The movie is awsome! If you have sons watch it with them and point out the love the brothers show for one another as one brother begins to die. The brothers were ready to kill each other throughout the movie after several events had left them lifeless, sad, and demonic for they had watched thier entire family die. Lost in thier own grief they did not realize the need they had for one another until it was too late. At the end of the movie you see the bad brother smile for the first time in the movie. He smiles after recieving a mortal wound when he hears his brother cry out his name, in fear knowing he is watching his brother die. He smiles and remembers his brother as a small child calling his name as a child calls out for his mother a million times a day. He smiles and says, "How sweet...I had forgoten." Reviewing the entire movie: Awsome soundtrack and very fast moving. You have to see it more than once to catch it all. You have to play it after that just to keep the sound track going for you never tire of it. "The entire Escaflowne universe in a can..." First off, I am a fan of the original series - Escaflowne. It's by far up there in the top 5 of favorite anime. It had a lot of memorable characters, good action and a pretty decent story. This is not an original Escaflowne. It does not take part before or after the series. It doesn't take place somewhere in the middle. It takes most of the main characters from the series and totally retells the entire story to fit into a movie. The result? Not a fan. Basically, because the entire movie you see a 30 second introduction to old characters in suped up animation with no depth. For example, the twin cat girls that were so fond Lord Falcon, show up instead for a brief 30 seconds as singers on stage in a bar. Ummm yuck. Lots of the more memorable characters are subjugated to this. Perhaps, if you seen this first it would be a decent watch. For myself, I was very disappointed. The good points of this movie is the animation is upgraded and the soundtrack is well done. Even as a standalone product, the movie has no flow or depth to it. It's basically just a compressed retelling of Escaflowne. I'd rent this and skip it as a purchase. If you want to purchase something, get the Escaflowne series. You will be much happier. "a good movie trying to break out" When I walzted into blockbuster the other day(but like any other day) i head straight for the anime section. Being an avid fan of anime, i plunge headlong into any anime and/or manga,knowing relativley nothing about it. So, as my sister and I stood pondering over which dvd to grab(we were there for well over ten minutes) We snatched whatever was looked at least hlfway decent, and it just happened to be appleseed and escaflowne. We had a portable dvd player in the car, and, because I knew alittle bit about appleseed, we watched that first. Holy crap(excuse my bluntness) but i was amazed and had thoroughly enjoyed mysef. That was a really great movie, But that's beside the point. So when we did finally return home, i was in a good mood and hadhigh hopes that escaflowne would be good too, although i have never heard of it. We popped the dvd in and began to watch. Well, my sister is very imature and kept commenting on Hitomi's nose. ahh... she's so annoying, but I didn't care particularly how the character's looked. It seemed intresting in the beginning, how Hitomi persieved life, and it made sense how she felt. Then the wierd stuff began. I guess because i haven't watched the tv series, i didin't really understand gaia at all. the wasn't much history in the movie , so I didn't understand hw everything tied in. Anyway, I liked van and his relationship with his brother and I did like van. . .alot. but i found hitomi rather annoying, constatly the damsel in distress and beckoning for aid from others and complaining about her mundane lifestyle and... well, i could go one and one. The dragon armor, escaflowne was cool, and I liked the raw savagnss of the fight between the armours in the end. But there was just something that kept me from really likeing it. There was a good premise for a movie, but it was almost poorly executed. The writing for hitomi was absolutly horendous. Trust me, there are numerous accounts in which she repeated the same thing over and over, which i would understand if she was contradicting herself, but it was more of reasuring herself out loud about EVERYTHING. Consistantly annoying. It was almost good, so i give it a 4 out of 5.But my sister would give it much, much less.