Dead Leaves

This is a movie about visuals.. and absurd, over the top fun. An enjoyable ~60 minutes for your mind to take a rest. Let the mind take a break, seat it comfortably and allow the colorful animation splash a bucket of weird Japanese imagination to your face. I must say that this movie is best viewed without the subtitles. When I first was watching it without them I decided to turn the subtitles on so I could follow the story, but right after that I missed half of the anime's lively visuals. So if you really are interested in getting the full experience and don't know Japanese I would recommend to watch this one twice, once to get the story, and second time to actually enjoy the amazing animation.

Arrested for stealing food, clothes and weapons, two amnesiacs with unusual facial features are thrown into an abusive lunar prison in this weird and wacky animated comedy from Japan. The pacing of the film is very brisk and so fast in fact that the opening few minutes (before the pair are arrested) are disorientating. The film goes from strength to strength though from the moment that the amnesiacs are imprisoned. As the jail inmates are force fed, forced to defecate at the same time and punished by death for the most minor rule infringements, the movie establishes a sharp attack on totalitarian justice systems. Things only get more interesting as the pair discover that all their inmates are genetically modified clones, which leads to them contemplating their own origins. As the film progresses, the action mounts more and more and when push comes to shove, the whole thing feels a little over-the-top. The imagination on display is incredible though (you will have never seen a baby quite like the one here - and then there is the golden drill!) and the film is even quite funny in between its violent outbursts. The movie's biggest drawback is the fact that it ends rather abruptly, but clocking in at less than one hour, the film at least never outstays its welcome while also providing plenty to ponder in terms of personal identity, prison brutality and the ethics of DNA manipulation.

Let me preface this by saying I don't watch a lot of anime, and when I do it's Howl's Moving Castle, or something along those lines. I think I came across Dead Leaves by googling for abstract or surreal movies or something like that, and the synopsis intrigued me so...why not?

The good: inventively insane visuals, unusual but effective animation style

The bad: everything else. Terrible, repetitive music. The plot is somewhere between flimsy and nonexistent. The characters are just vehicles for crude humor and gruesome violence, with no merit of their own.

I watched with interest for about 20 minutes as things just got progressively weirder and weirder, but it eventually became clear that the movie was going to just be an endless stream of pointless violence and crude humor and that's all, so I turned it off. If you already know and are familiar with this type of anime then maybe it will work for you. If you're looking for any degree of substance, then keep looking.

I saw this one night on a whim. I had no idea what this was going to be. On animidnight I catch the occasional anime and this was something different. This is Dead Leaves.

This totally blew away my expectations!! We start with our two heroes who for some reason are sitting alone naked and have amnesia. After a small introduction to our heroes, the mayhem begins. The animation alone is the first thing I noticed and it's so stunningly original and fun to look at and fits the story well. The characters our heroes meet along the way are far too funny and silly. This is also packed with some memorable one liners as well. The action is aggressive, funny, original(there's that word again), and extremely violent. Our heroes are very likable(especially Retro), and totally own the screen. Also watch for lots of crude and vulgar humor and language. This is not for kids at all. One of the many characters is Chinco Doll, a mutant with a drill. Once we meet him, let the crude begin. I'll just leave it at that. The voice acting is fantastic, the story is pretty good too. After all of this, why give this a nine and not a ten? Because this is only 45 minutes long. After this ended, I wanted more. 45 minutes does this no justice.

The Last Word: Fantastic. This is an original work of art. I can watch this over and over and this will not get old. From the humor to the action, Dead Leaves delivers all. Only drawback, too short. Dead Leaves will leave you wanting more.

If Madhouse's Redline is a "flashy action ride", then Dead Leaves is a "nuts-to-the-wall flashy tripped-out action ride on speed". The movie's high-contrast comic book-like visuals had me expecting something unique, but I don't think I could properly have prepared myself for just how unique Dead Leaves turns out to be. The comic book style applies not only to the frequently grotesque characters and outlandish scenery, but also to the cinematography itself with several "panels" often being shown on screen at the same time, sound effects appearing as actual floating words, and unusual framing used to emphasize certain parts of the scenes. The narrative begins with the protagonists, Retro (a TV-headed man) and Pandy (a woman with a mysterious red spot over her right eye) waking up naked and without their memories only to go on a crime spree which gets them sent for life to a prison on the moon called Dead Leaves. Not for the straitlaced or faint of heart, Dead Leaves' mere 52 minutes zoom by at break-neck speed in a flurry of explosions, gore, sex and nudity, but if you can stomach the off-the-wall content you're in for a very enjoyable if lamentably brief anime experience.