Rating: 
Summary: This...Movie...Is...Boring...And...Slow...
Review: Jin-Roh could have been so great. Being the impulse buyer that I am, when I saw the box art and read the back of the DVD case, I said, "Cool! This looks like a good action anime with a story!"That day, I learned to never judge a DVD by it's case. No joke: this anime is BORING! It starts out with a nice action sequence with cops futilly trying to capture a terrorist. After that, the entire anime bogs down to a slow crawl concerning Constable Fuse (the protagonist) and his connection to the Jin-Roh, or something. My friend and I can't quite remember what happened after that because we started talking about how cool this anime could've been.
The biggest gripe with the film is that you just know that it's leading up to something great and just kinda fizzles out. Take my advice and avoid this movie like the plague
Rating: 
Summary: Fine If Grim Bit Of Work
Review: * I had been impressed by Mamoru Oshii's movie version of GHOST
IN THE SHELL and even more so by his movie PATLABOR II (one of
animation's best-kept secrets), so I was interested in his movie
JIN-ROH, THE WOLF BRIGADE and picked it up. This film takes place in about 1960 in an alternate history
version of Japan, one only slightly removed from our timeline.
We Westerners tend to stereotype Japanese society as orderly, and
it actually seems to be by our standards, but in the 1950s and 1960s
there was a militant Left in operation that could be violent. JIN-ROH takes this scenario a step further, creating
a full-blown Leftist terrorist organization called
the "Sect". Of course, with terrorists on the loose, the
government creates an antiterrorist force, the "Capitol
Police", whose troops are heavily armed, inclined to brute force,
and intimidating. Now this sounds like a scenario for a good, violent, shoot-em-up
anime adventure film. However, JIN-ROH is nothing of the sort.
By the time the events of the film take place, Japan is becoming
prosperous, just as happened in our timeline, and the Sect is
losing popular appeal, with the ranks increasingly composed of
diehards who are being slowly whittled down to extinction. This means that the Capitol Police are becoming less of a
necessity and more of a liability, bringing to the surface a
long-standing conflict with the normal city police force. This
is the real struggle in the story, and it rotates around a
Capitol Police trooper named Fuse. The Sect uses old women and young girls, known as "Red Riding
Hoods", as runners, deploying bombs and running other errands, as
they don't attract attention. During an operation, Fuse corners
a Red Riding Hood, but is unable to stop her when she detonates
the satchel charge she is carrying, blowing herself to bits. Fuse
survives without serious injury, though he seems demoralized and
uncertain and is assigned to retraining. Then, when visiting the
shrine of the dead girl, he runs into another girl, who he
finds out is the dead girl's sister ... OK, that's as far as I dare go in revealing the story, since it
immediately begins to spiral into a series of intrigues, where
nothing is quite as it seems, and the mysterious "Wolf Brigade",
a secret organization of rightists in various government
organizations, lurks in the background. What supports this story is outstanding artwork and production
values. This is what I call "cin-anime", with no connection to
big-eyed Eurasian characters of conventional anime, instead
striving to portray the world in realistic (Japanese) characters
and details. This is not to say that the artwork simply transcribes
photographic imagery, since it imposes a strong style on the
imagery. And that style is ... DARK. Very dark. Really dark.
Which is entirely consistent with the script, which takes a
totally cynical view of human behavior, involving betrayal and
cruelty (with some very graphic violence), leading up to a
conclusion that reminds me of the old bit about things always
looking darkest just before they go pitch black. The production is technically outstanding. The images of a 1960
Japan are vivid and detailed. Although Oshii is basically an
antimilitarist, JIN-ROH has a particular fascination with weapons
and depicts them in detail. This seems a bit odd for an
antimilitarist like Oshii, but "it's a guy thing". I am not wildly enthusiastic about grim movies. I'm into
fiction for entertainment, don't take it real seriously, and
can't see why I'd want to watch a movie that bums me out.
However, I really do have to respect JIN-ROH, since it's such a
beautifully and meticulously done piece of work. Grim, yes,
ponderous, yes, but by no means shoddy or dull. Think of it
as anime done by George Orwell. Incidentally, I would recommend buying the standard edition of
this movie. The additional materials provided in the "deluxe
edition" are of no great interest -- for example, the soundtrack
CD is, like the movie itself, conscientious but dark, sombre
strings broken by searing guitar licks, in any case not something
I'm likely play over and over again. As another incidental comment, the slipcover gives the movie
running time as 162 minutes. Actually, it seems to be the
conventional 90 to 100 minutes. I mention this because it made
the conclusion something of an abrupt surprise when I was
expecting the film to go on for another hour.
Rating: 
Summary: simply incredible
Review: Jin Roh is one of the most incredible movies I have ever seen. It is full of emotion, moral delemas, and political intrige. I would recomend this to all my SMART friends, because if your the type of person who only likes anime that is action packed and has exitment at every turn, you will not like this. Also, Iwould definetly not recomend this for someone under, say, 16, unless they are very mature and intellegent, as it is very violent and most children would get bored and not understand it. The violence, however, is not gracious or entened to be enjoyable, and instead powerful and realistic. The dub is quite good, as dubs go, but I still recomend watching it in Japanese with english subtitles. It is beutiful and tragic, moving and amazing, wonderfuly directed, and a truely adult anime. This could very possibly be my favorite movie. See it, and prepared to be amazed.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece that chalenges human nature.
Review: First off, this film was brilliant IN EVERY RESPECT. The animation was not drab, but slightly depressing(very appropriate for this film) and was not big eyed, spiky hair stlye anime, which would have destroyed the film. The characters are not super heros or ninjas who can take off your head with a sneeze, but real people with real emotions. From the very begining you could relate and/or feel for the character as the story builds. This film truly does ask the qeustion "can a man overcome his pain, and be a human." 5 star film, absolutly!
Rating:
Summary: Involving
Review: I must say, I was impressed by the reviews and all the anticipation the trailers generated. First, it is rated for mature audiences because of some gore (cruel shootings), aome say the ending will make you want to puke (false), the movie develves from a story that is a metaphor and it seems not everybody got this right. This movie is also a true film noir, so you will be captivated from the first minute even if you are a film fan. The score is great, the art is perfectly suited, and the direction is one of the best I have seen. Also, if you are into Werewolf (RPG game), you need to see this move, this will renew your love for the game and for wolves, it fully describes a character which is worth playing (of course, there are no werewolves in the movie... at least not in the mythological way). My only regret is that the DVD comes only with the movie, 4 trailers from other movies, no bonus or extras. The audio is great (Dolby). The english translation has very few errors not even worthy of mentioning. Great movie, get it !
Rating: 
Summary: So-So
Review: This movie feels like just another tear-jerking American film. And it's from Japan. I really wanted to like it more than I did. The way it was narrorated was cool though (the story of little red riding hood).
Rating:
Summary: brutal at times but good
Review: saw this on the net to see it before i decided whether i ought to buy it or not. it was the subtitled version but was still great. this is really amazing animation for those of you who don't like the 'big eyes/oddly proportioned' characters of some of the more commonly veiwed anime. bit confusing at times, one that(like many animes) you may have to watch more than once to pick everything up.
anyway, a bit sad but worth buying in my oppinion.
Rating:
Summary: BUT IT KNOW!
Review: Anime at it's best. Look, if you are looking for a "classic" review, with analysis and other stuff like taht, forget it, I'll go straight to the point. It's a excellent story, you even forget is anime at some points. You just go inside the story, and share everyhting with everyone. The movie is so great, it doesn't need a lot of action. Is poetic, is sad, is fun. Want to see a different movie, even a different story for an anime? Check it out, don't reant it (and for me to say this), you wont regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful, depressing movie, but has no reason to be animated
Review: Let me set my biases out first: I'm an animation fan, not a movie buff. I like story, plot, and characters as much as anyone else, but if I'm buying an animated movie, I want it to make use of its medium. Jin-Roh, while it succeeds as a movie, fails as animation. The basic point here is that all of this could just as easily have been done with live actors and sets. It's a character-driven drama, about the choices (and lack of choices) facing people in a decaying society. The characters are realistic, the setting familiar and urban. The armor used by the Capital Police--the elite troopers at the heart of the story--is nothing which could not have been better in a dozen U.S. science fiction movies. Watching this, I wanted to scream, Why is this animated? The only answer is this: Japan's live action movie industry is almost pathetically small by U.S. standards. I want to compare Jin-Roh to Wings of Honneamise, which is another anime movie which could have been live action. But WoH was a powerfully re-imagined world, which would have been constrained had it been created with sets; Jin-Roh has no visual imagination or sense of wonder to it. But what if you're not like me, and just want a good movie? Jin-Roh may succeed for you. I found it difficult to generate much sympathy for the characters, as the plot is driven by politicking (this may be a trend: Gasaraki and Patlabor, as just two examples, fell prey to this also). The political machinations of almost faceless characters is not compelling to me. Once the story starts in motion, with Fuse, the main character forced to act, it becomes more interesting. The ending, without spoiling anything, has a sharp emotional impact. In the end, Jin-Roh is a depressing movie which conveys a sense of hopelessness and futility, and the inability of men to escape their hunger for power. I simply wish it had the visual imagination to make use of the inherent freedom of animation. This is a live action movie forced into animation because of the economics in Japan.
Rating:
Summary: 1st class animation
Review: This is such an amazing tale. It's loosely woven around the fariy tale "red riding hood", and is influenced quite a bit by the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's grim, yet has moments of beauty. The animation is perfect; I lived in Korea for a year, and although it takes place in Japan this evokes the same sense of the country that living there did. The people look realistic, no funky hair or weird flying here. It's very high quality. It is not happy, though, or kind. It's very dark and deals with difficult emotions. It's inevetable and still suspenseful, tragic and conflicted and pure.
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