Spriggan

—by Eric "Scanner" Luce

What was supposed to be one of the bigger movies of last summer ended up without much post-movie hype, leading one to wonder just how good it actually was.
The movie SPRIGGAN was based on the manga of the same name written by Takashige Hiroshi and Minagawa Ryouji. The manga was rather long and the movie only deals with the first chapter. The premise of this world is that there are powerful artifacts scattered here and there around the globe by an ancient civilization that destroyed itself. They left a message, though, asking that their legacy be protected against the hand of evil, lest it use these artifacts and destroy yet another civilization. In our time, the organization Arcam made of an elite fighting force (the Spriggans) and a team of scientists has taken on the burden of guarding these secrets. With the discovery of Noah's Ark however, the USA Pentagon wants to unseal it and use it.
The USA quickly moves in an attempt to take out the key elements of Arcam's fighting force. When their attempt to assassinate Ominae Yu through the use of a classmate fails, Yu refuses to be left out of the action and flies to Turkey to help protect the Ark. The war between the sides rapidly escalates during which we meet two of Arcam's top researchers, Dr. Maezel and his assistant Margaret. The two researchers show Yu the entrance to the Ark but explain that they are unable to open it. The Ark remains unaffected by all outside forces. It is frozen in time.
Eventually Arcam's forces at mount Ararat are overwhelmed by Colonel MacDoogal, a young child with immense intelligence and telekinetic powers created by the Pentagon. However the Pentagon's plan to control MacDoogal fails and he intends to use the Ark for his own ends. And to make things worse, he has the key to unseal the Ark.
The action in the film is very well done. It is obvious that a lot of money and time went into the production. The motions are very fluid and smooth. The backgrounds are well detailed and give a strong sense of the Turkish landscape.
The story itself lends good life to the original manga. In some ways its much faster pacing plays a lot better as well. The characters seem more believable and Yu seems far less caught up in the male high school testosterone contest with the other top Spriggan Jean Jacquemonde than he does in the manga.
The movie ends up being an action film. A very well animated action film, but a lot of the impact is lost on a smaller screen. The plot is well paced for a feature-length movie but you get very little feeling for the background of any of the characters except for Ominae Yu and perhaps his rival "Fatman."
Viewers will want to know what this ancient civilization that left all these artifacts behind is. Was it Noah that destroyed them? Or something else? Were they even human? For these answers you will have to find the manga and read it, because the movie doesn't provide them..
The soundtrack (as reviewed in EX 3.7 left the listener with a lot of hope for the movie. Unfortunately the most impressive track, "Jing Ling" which opened the CD, is only used in the closing credits.
Personally, the best parts of the movie dealt almost entirely with the activation of Noah's Ark and its control room. It gave the viewer a sense of something really not of this world. One is reminded a little bit of the first time Nadia activates Blue Noah in FUSHIGI NO UMI NO NADIA. This is where the impressive animation budget helped render a setting that is hard to imagine.
If you are after an action/adventure movie that has some good visuals, a decent soundtrack, and some very fast moving fight scenes that does not need to be deep on the plot or storytelling then you will enjoy SPRIGGAN. That it makes good use of Dolby Digital 5.1 surround adds a lot to the experience as well. See this one in a home theater, at least, if you can.

Director: Kawasaki Hiroshi
Supervising director: Otomo Katsuhiro
DVD, LD, VHS 90 minutes / ¥7,800
LD - BELL-1404, DVD - BCBA-0134
Available 25 April, 1999 in Japan
Where to buy

Additional DVD release information:
Region 2, 16:9 anamorphic
Dolby Digital 5.1 channel and 2 channel Dolby surround.