Take the racing action of a movie like ‘The Fast And The Furious’ and add it to the brutality of ‘Death Race’ and you’re on the right track of understanding what new Anime film ‘Redline’ is like. One of the better Anime films to surface this year I really get the feeling that this a film that I am going to watch over and over.
‘Redline’ is set in the future where cars no longer go on land but instead fly, but for one group of racers land is where they enjoy to race their hotted up ‘cars’ (although spaceships would be a more accurate description). One of these drivers is JP, a young racer who was once arrested for race fixing. When he is invited to take part in the prestigious Redline race (mainly due to his popularity with the fans) he isn’t expected to play a major part in the race. And it’s not just the rough style of racing that will put JP at risk, he has to battle against the organized crime and militaristic goverments that threaten the race, while he himself is distracted as he has fallen in love with one of his competitors.
This is one Anime that does truly suck you in. The animation looks amazing and while it does take a little while to get used to the fact that in this universe there are dog-like aliens that just seem to co-exist with humans and robots, you do eventually get a good take on it. Some good script work means that you become a ‘fan’ of JP from the start and even though car-racing is the main theme you get a good feel for his (and his love interest, Sonoshee) characters… now that’s something that actual car-racing films could learn something from.
It has hard to believe that an Anime that is as visually spectacular as ‘Redline’ has a first time director at the helm… but that is exactly what Takeshi Koike is. He obviously learnt a lot when he was working as a key animator on films such as ‘The Animatrix’ because he does an amazing job here. Little touches like having characters that you can tell are based on Paris Hilton bring an air of familiarity to the film, while my only gripe is that Koike allows the ‘advertisement’ section in the middle of the film to run a tad too long.
Some Anime purists will be a little annoyed that Koike steers away from the standard Anime art and brings a more Western look (think ‘Heavy Metal’) to the film but for me this has quickly arrived on my list of fave Anime films. Add all this to a pumping soundtrack and you have the perfect Anime on your hands.
Year: 2009
Director: Takeshi Koike
Stars: Takuya Kimura, Yu Aoi, Tadanobu Asano
Classification: M
Runtime: 101 mins
Rating: 
Out on DVD from 14th December, 2011