Fantasia 2019, Movie Reviews
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[FANTASIA 2019] ‘KINGDOM’ Review

The seven kingdoms of China are at odds. During war, a child Li Xin is left without any parents, and is taken in by a family. Now growing up with a brother Piao, the two boys have grand ambitions of becoming the two greatest generals in China. Practicing sword fighting for their entire childhood and now young adults, Piao (Ryo Yoshizawa) is enlisted to go fight, and Li Xin (Kento Yamazaki) vows to soon follow. But one night Piao stumbles home, mortally wounded. Li Xin now vows in addition to being one of the greatest generals he will also kill those responsible for murdering his brother. On his journey of vengeance, Li Xin meets a semi-hidden King Yin Zheng (also Ryo Yoshizawa) who is a dead ringer for Piao. Turns out Piao was a double posing as the king, who was betrayed by his brother Cheng Jiao (Kanata Hongo) for the throne. Now Li Xin and Yin Zheng must unite in order to overthrow the corrupt Cheng Jiao and his council. This includes enlisting a clan of feral, mountain-dwelling warriors led by the deadly Yang Duan He (Masami Nagasawa) to join the quest.

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Based on the Manga/Anime of the same name, Kingdom is fairly action packed and adequately compelling. I didn’t necessarily get caught up in the dramatics or have any emotional ties to the characters, but I didn’t really need to either. I was here for the direction and the spectacle, and Kingdom absolutely delivers in this department. When the first real fight begins it becomes clear that everything is going to be quick, well captured, and expertly choreographed. The choreography is excellently executed throughout the film, including great stunts and live-action anime beats that are actually translated rather than looking artificial and composed on a computer.
The visual effects, in fact, are rather wonderful. This is a big-budget, Sony production that is grand in scope and looks fantastic. I adored Shinsuke Sato’s 2015 Manga adaptation I Am a Hero, and he’s definitely got a visual flair and style that connects here. Without having seen anything else of his, I feel like Kingdom is a wonderful culmination of years and years of adapting popular Manga/Anime properties like Gantz, Death Note, and most recently with Netflix’s 2018 release Bleach. Where Kingdom falters is in the simplistic story and standard trope characters. There’s nothing new or unique offered on this front, which may in fact just be inherent with the source material but it also isn’t helped any here either.
There’s a kind of magic in Kingdom that I appreciated, with some shots and sequences I couldn’t exactly figure out how were accomplished. There’s a giant of some sort that appears to be some hybrid of practical animatronics and CGI, possibly even a guy in a suit, and it looks excellent.  I wanted spectacle, and I got it. It didn’t measure up in a lot of ways, but it delivered what I came for. There’s definitely more story to tell here, and the set up for a sequel is fairly obvious. I’m all for it, just want some better writing to back it up!
Good news! In addition to playing at Fantasia 2019, Kingdom has US distribution from the good folks over at Funimation. It will be in limited theaters on August 16th!
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Spielberg, Hill, Verhoven, Cronenberg, Landis, Carpenter, Lucas, Friedkin, and many others built my taste in youth. Then filmmakers from Italy, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Spain crept in. Now I'm an unstoppable film fiend, and living and breathing ALL the visual mediums you can find. I'll take any excuse to talk movies or TV, so writing and podcasting are my outlets!

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