Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms (2006)

Hellboy travels to Japan to fight an ancient demon.

Directors:

Phil Weinstein, Tad Stones

Writers:

Mike Mignola (based on characters created by), Mike Mignola (story by)

Stars:

Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones

Nominated for 1 Primetime Emmy. Another 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Ron Perlman	...	Hellboy (voice)
Selma Blair	...	Liz Sherman (voice)
Doug Jones	...	Abe Sapien (voice)
Peri Gilpin	...	Professor Kate Corrigan (voice)
Dee Bradley Baker	...	Lightning / Kappa / Pilot (voice)
Kim Mai Guest	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Michael Hagiwara	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Yuriana Kim	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Clyde Kusatsu	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Phil LaMarr	...	Bureau Member / Pilot / Additional Voices (voice)
Liza Del Mundo	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Paul Nakauchi	...	Additional Voices (voice)
James Sie	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Mitchell Whitfield	...	Russell Thorne (voice)
Gwendoline Yeo	...	Kitsune (voice)

Storyline

A professor of folklore opens a forbidden scroll and becomes possessed by the ancient Japanese demons of Thunder and Lightning, who seek to return and dominate our world. The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense sends Hellboy and a team of agents to investigate, but when Hellboy picks up a samurai sword, he literally disappears into a weird wonderland of Japanese legends, ghosts and monsters. Meanwhile, BPRD agents Kate Corrigan and Russell Thorne are on the trail of the possessed professor to bring Hellboy back.

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Plot Keywords:

skeletal remains | reflection in a pair of glasses | samurai | samurai sword | japan | 

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Genres:

Animation | Action | Adventure | Fantasy | Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Official Sites:

IDT Entertainment [United States] Production Blog

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 October 2006 (USA)

Also Known As:

Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms

Box Office

Budget:

$5,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Film Roman Productions, IDT Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

77 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The name that the old man is carving into a cucumber is "Murakami". Director Tad Stones says that this is a shout out to his friend, fellow animator Glen Murakami

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Goofs

We see the giant bat creature pin Abe to the ground, then the shot cuts away for a moment and then cuts back to the bat but Abe is now on his feet and several yards away from the creature when there wasn't time for him to get there.

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Quotes

Liz Sherman: Underwater- that giving-me-air thing- that was, um... I didn't know you could do that.
Abe Sapien: I wasn't sure it would work, either, but I have burped excess air before, so I thought...
Liz Sherman: Aah! I was breathing your burps? Ugh!

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Connections

Spun-off from Hellboy (2004)

User Reviews

Hell-No

I get the feeling that this "Hellboy Animated" movie only materialised to cash in on the popularity of the live action movie.

This seems to be a prequel to the first Hellboy movie, but it lacks the sense of grandeur that the first, or Golden Army, had. It feels like a "just another day on the job" accounting of one of Hellboy's more interesting paranormal cases, which in this case involves a plot by some Japanese demons to enslave the world and the key to stopping them lie in the form of an ancient Samurai Blade. Fair enough. It sounds quite good. I bet it sounded better on paper than the end result we see on screen. The plot weaves in and out, cutting between Abe Sapien and Liz Sherman responding to some anomaly in the ocean, 2 BPRD agents tracking down a possessed Professor and Hellboy lost in the Japanese backwoods with the Samurai Sword. It gets a little hard to follow at times and many scenes just seem unnecessary in advancing the overall plot. The producers tried to throw in some very unique monsters and threats for Hellboy to face, based on many ancient Japanese myths. A noble move, but unless you are already well versed in the old folklore from the land of the Rising Sun, those monsters(that apparently the production team painstakingly researched) would just come across as generic supernatural threats with some quirky designs.

In the end, The whole resolution to the story is possibly the weakest aspect; a real let down. There is a romantic subplot involving an ancient samurai and his ghostly lover but it is not like the romance in the live action movie, more closer to Saturday morning cartoon style of romantic relationships. It is cheesy and would easily make one shake his head in disbelief that the script writers would throw in something like that into an otherwise well written script.

The animation for the most part is also relatively weak. As a direct-to-DVD animated feature, Hellboy Animated's animation does not stand up well to other animated feature adaptations of comic book superheros It is stiff, with bland camera angles and uninteresting storyboarding. The visuals are painfully simple, along the lines of animated TV series much less a animated feature. One would think that Mike Mignola's streamlined art style, minimalist colouring and dark, grim and quirky visuals form the comic book would be easy to adapt to animation. They were able to capture Mignola's art style perfectly with "The Amazing Screw On Head" that was released a month earlier from Hellboy Animated. Alas, the production company chose not to stick to that look and went with another stylised look that, in my humble opinion, looked absolutely horrible.

The character designs looked like a splicing of Kim Possible, Danny Phantom, and some of the worst looking episodes from the 90s Batman animated series and Transformers Animated. Body Proportions are almost laughable and the overall look comes across as cheap and lazy. This show would not have looked out of place when aired on Saturday mornings after Spongebob Squarepants.

Thankfully, a highly enjoyable script and excellent character chemistry saves this show from being a utter failure. Dark Humour, witty comebacks and entertaining banter among the characters. The movie captures the quirkiness of the comics very well and the actors from the film reprise their roles, lending to the feel of continuity.

This one is really a mixed bag. If you can get pass the overall under-budgeted look and cheap-o feel of the animation then make your way through one mess of a story smelling like cheese, you got a really entertaining animated movie on your hands. Fun to watch, but little else beyond that.