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Audio Format: DTS 6.1 ES, DD 6.1 EX
Video Format: Widescreen 1.78:1 (Anamorphic)
Languages: Japanese, Cantonese
Subtitles: English, Chinese (T)
Region Code: 3
Year Made: 2007
Running Time: 138
Release Date: 10/08/2007
Big-budget period dramas, often set a millennium or more ago and based on a famous legend or historical incident, are the coin of the Asian coproduction realm.
Major regional players put money in these films because they represent sure bets; everybody in the target territories knows the characters and story. But once the serious money comes in, or national pride is as stake, the fun usually goes out and grandiosity sets in, even if the source material is the stuff of kiddy cartoons.
"Dororo," acclaimed indie filmmaker Akihito Shiota's first venture into the period-fantasy genre, may have serious money behind it, from the TBS network among others, but it is not another solemn-faced epic. It is deep enough in some of its themes, including the meaning of what it is to be human in an age of human engineering, but it also deserves adjectives that used to be rolled out for old Errol Flynn movies: dashing, swashbuckling, rollicking.
The hero, Hyakkimaru (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is a wandering "demon hunter" whose extra body parts -- 48 to be exact -- were grafted onto his head and trunk by a herb doctor (Yoshio Harada) who discovered him as an infant, in a process that echoes "Frankenstein" and "The Island of Dr. Moreau." His warlord father (Kiichi Nakai) gave the originals to 48 demons in exchange for power. When Hyakkimaru kills a demon, he wins back a body part.
He is spotted in one of these battles, with a giant spider demon, by Dororo (Kou Shibasaki), a scrappy female thief who is fascinated by not only Hyakkimaru's prowess with the sword blade poking out of his arm but the new leg he grows after dicing his opponent. Is he a man -- or a monster? After hearing his story from an old minstrel, she decides to join him on his travels and find out for herself.
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