Today's mystery meat is "Highlander -- The Search for Vengeance".

Highlander? You mean they did a Highlander movie without Christopher Lambert? Yup, and it's animated. An American production, at least in the sense of who fronted the money, animated in Japan, and voiced in English by American voice actors. (There was a version of it released in Japan, with Japanese seiyuu, and it wasn't edited quite the same way. I watched the American release.)

The "Highlander" mythos, as originally presented in the live-action films, has an element of the Flying Dutchman legend. In this film they've accentuated that aspect of it.

The fundamental story is of a man named Colin, who was born in England about 100 AD. His tribe, about 400 men, end up fighting against a Roman legion of about 4000 men.

Since I don't want to reveal any spoilers, all I can really say is that Colin's tribe is eradicated. His wife is brutally killed. He is the only survivor. The Romans were led by Marcus Octavius, another immortal. Colin then spends about 2000 years pursuing Octavius seeking vengeance, finding him again and again, fighting him again and again -- and losing every time, only to be saved by chance or the presence of holy ground.

There are a lot of flashbacks in the film which fill in that aspect of it. The "present" is about 2150 AD in post-holocaust New York, mainly Manhattan.

The animation is very high budget. The character designs look to be inspired by Afro Samurai, probably in hopes of appealing to the same audience.

They have taken some serious liberties with the original canon. The most important change is that Colin is not born a Scot. He becomes MacLeod about a thousand years after his birth, more or less by adoption. That's an interesting aspect to his story, because thereafter he always identifies himself as being a member of clan MacLeod. But he originated in southern England.

As with the Flying Dutchman, MacLeod is a man condemned to living hell by his own stubbornness. And that is ultimately the story in this movie; not his vengeance, but how he is ultimately redeemed from a curse of his own making. He will continue to sail down through the centuries, but he is no longer damned.

It turned out to be a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I started writing this in parallel with watching it, and included the usual snark, but about half way through the film I stopped, and once it was over, I deleted everything I'd written and started over.

It is an excellent film, and I recommend it highly.

I've tossed some frame grabs below the fold.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Mystery Meat at 07:20 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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