Dragon Age: Blood of the Seeker is something as rare as dark fantasy that doesn't devolve into the stale, predictable realm of antiheroes. There's little depth here, but it is a an entertaining action-fantasy movie that'll keep you entertained.
The story follows Cassandra, an elite warrior of the Chantry of the Maker, who gets involved in a conspiracy involving threats to the Chantry from both within and without. Without spoiling the story too much, the characters are refreshingly sincere, devoted, yet flawed.
A personal pet peeve of mine in modern movies is the tendency to focus ridiculous amounts of time on the background of the antagonist, i.e. why he/she became the unpleasant individual you see before you today. Thankfully this is avoided here.
The animations and the rotoscoped background scenery was impressive. The voice acting is above average, but nothing that blew me away. The dialog was pretty good for an anime, but don't expect the King's Speech with swords. The music was for me the weak point, as there were no particularly memorable themes.
In some ways, despite the very modern computer generated animation and dark fantasy themes based on the Dragon Age world, Dawn of the Seeker has a distinct old school feel to it.
So a word of warning. If you're the type of viewer who prefer your fantasy stuck in a quagmire of black-and-gray morality as per God of War or A Game of Thrones, you will come away disappointed. There is no rape, no drawn out torture scenes, and honor is a strength, not a weakness. Likewise if you expect the movie to be some sort of angry rant against the dangers of organized religion, you're better off watching Cristopher Hitchens on Youtube than a Japanese fantasy anime.
All in all, it is a great dark fantasy movie with violent, entertaining action and likable characters and just enough plot twists to keep it from being boring. :)
The story follows Cassandra, an elite warrior of the Chantry of the Maker, who gets involved in a conspiracy involving threats to the Chantry from both within and without. Without spoiling the story too much, the characters are refreshingly sincere, devoted, yet flawed.
A personal pet peeve of mine in modern movies is the tendency to focus ridiculous amounts of time on the background of the antagonist, i.e. why he/she became the unpleasant individual you see before you today. Thankfully this is avoided here.
The animations and the rotoscoped background scenery was impressive. The voice acting is above average, but nothing that blew me away. The dialog was pretty good for an anime, but don't expect the King's Speech with swords. The music was for me the weak point, as there were no particularly memorable themes.
In some ways, despite the very modern computer generated animation and dark fantasy themes based on the Dragon Age world, Dawn of the Seeker has a distinct old school feel to it.
So a word of warning. If you're the type of viewer who prefer your fantasy stuck in a quagmire of black-and-gray morality as per God of War or A Game of Thrones, you will come away disappointed. There is no rape, no drawn out torture scenes, and honor is a strength, not a weakness. Likewise if you expect the movie to be some sort of angry rant against the dangers of organized religion, you're better off watching Cristopher Hitchens on Youtube than a Japanese fantasy anime.
All in all, it is a great dark fantasy movie with violent, entertaining action and likable characters and just enough plot twists to keep it from being boring. :)