Unlimitedia
Sick Product of a Sick System
Brainsbell
The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.
Rio Hayward
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Midnight Sun
All you really need to know is Angel Cop boasts decent action scenes, gratuitous violence and a hilarious English dub with such gems as "If this is justice, then I'm a banana!" Starts with an anime Dirty Harry, throw in a cyberpunk element and psychic powers like so many anime of the time, and you have an admittedly interesting setup. Unfortunately, the plot is flimsy and silly, the protagonist is easy to hate and the villain masterminds are practically cardboard cutouts. The final fight with a nigh-invulnerable psychic is neat, but all importance is quickly diminished by our incredibly inept hero. I like the weapon concepts; Recoil so high it breaks your arm, or muzzle flash so bright it fries your retinas. Not surprisingly, there's excessive violence to go along with it. Anyway, watch it for the laughs.
abadgorilla
i saw the American dubbed version and loved it...i wish there were more movies like this now-days..no production will spent money on that kind of films anymore. the plot is not really clear.. and i heard that the original version is anti-American / antisemitic. still think it does not matter for this kind of movies... i liked the animation and the style of drawing the "villain" character is ridiculously strong.so if you like those old gory anime with a basic plot line, and amazing character design, this movie is for you! & you would also like: wicked city ,ninja scroll.enjoy
DigitalRevenantX7
Plot Synopsis: Japan in the early 21st Century. Due to an increased incidence of terrorist attacks, the Japanese government has created the Special Security Force, an elite six-man team with wide ranging powers including a licence to kill. They have been assigned to take down the Red May, a Communist group that has been trying to bring down the government. While pursuing some members of the Red May, one of the SSF agents, Raiden, is injured. His partner, Angel, catches up with the terrorists, only to find their mutilated corpses. Later the SSF captures the leader of the terrorists, who reveals that he has information that implicates the higher echelons of the government in a secret deal with American companies to turn one of Japan's islands into a toxic waste dump. But before they can arrest the remaining Red May members, the terrorists are killed by a trio of immensely powerful psychic vigilantes known as "hunters". The leader of the hunters, Lucifer, decides to eliminate the SSF on the supposed grounds of aiding the terrorists. As Lucifer cuts a swathe of destruction throughout the city, picking off the SSF agents one by one, Angel & Raiden (who has been converted into a super-powered cyborg by a rogue scientist) must defeat her while trying to survive attacks by the regular army.Film Review: Angel Cop was one of the early OVA (Original Video Animation) features to come out of Japan. OVA features were anime films that were edited into several episodes & released direct-to-video. In a way they were the Japanese equivalent of the USA's DTV market.This particular OVA feature has a real bizarre identity crisis. Anyone who first sees the title would think that the film is about angelic police officers (without looking at the video cover, which features a half-naked woman holding a gun). But once you watch the first episode, you get the impression that it is a political action thriller. Indeed, from here it looks like an interesting concept with some very highly-charged political story lines involving communists trying to overthrow Japan.But once the second episode begins, the show's real intent becomes clear – it is just another standard anime sci-fi / action series disguised as a political thriller (it seems that the makers were either disinterested in the plot or simply didn't know how to continue the story along without throwing in cyborgs, psychics or countless explosions).Angel Cop features all the hallmarks of the genre, as well as the clichés – powerful near-indestructible cyborgs, ridiculously powerful psychics, lots of big guns & an insane amount of explosions that, if were the show filmed in live action, would bankrupt any effects company daring enough to try it. Each battle outdoes the previous one in terms of size & destruction caused that it all becomes mind-numbing by the last episode – not only that but the show misses the opportunity to build up the battles dramatically, with the show limping from one battle to the next.As nothing else than a catalogue of destruction, Angel Cop manages to entertain enough for it to be rated as strictly mediocre (although it does manage to compare to the works of Michael Bay, the infamous American director who enjoys making films that cater to the lowest common denominator by employing mindless destruction scenes). The initial confrontation between the SSF & the hunters is the show's highlight, with the appearance of the young psychic bathed in flames but not actually burning proving to be intensely weird. In this regard, it's hard to fault the show. Another problem is that Angel Cop tries to act very ambitious, with the villains being some corrupt politicians in the pay of the Americans (indeed the original cut of the series was incredibly anti-American – the English redub largely cuts such content out although some of the essence remains). It is also quite amusing to note that Angel Cop was made shortly before the Asian economic crisis dragged Japan down from near-superpower status.The other problem with Angel Cop is the severity of its content – it is needlessly gory, with bodies blown apart, heads exploding & the like. I like gore but gore without context (such as featured here) is just mindless. It also features a lot of foul language.It is interesting to point out that Angel Cop's core concept – that of an elite counter-terrorist unit – was later used twenty years later for GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX, a more authentic series that managed to carry out its goings on with a whole lot more intelligence to it.
Craig
OK, this isn't exactly the thinking man's Manga, but a kickass, nonstop action romp nonetheless. A lot of people will criticise this movie for having a weak storyline, underdeveloped characters or whatever, but it has one thing in spades - violence! Head popping, limb wrenching, flesh burning violent action in all of it's glory. And isn't that the main reason why people watch these kind of Manga films? Also, the standard of the animation is very high, an essential requirement for any kind of animated feature in my book. An anime film could tell the greatest story since War and Peace, but, if it has the kind of animation that makes early Hanna Barbera cartoons look like masterpieces, I'll turn it off after about ten minutes. Anyway, the plot and storyline aren't as bad as many would have you believe, certainly not compared to the standard of most anime features. Maybe it wasn't surrealistic enough, perhaps some people would have been happier if it all turned out to be a metaphor, unveiling the mysteries of evolution and the spirituality of man. For me, this flick has it all - violent "cops on the edge", slowmo shootouts, vengeful cyborgs and psychotic superhuman killers. If there were a live action film that had all of this backed up with cutting edge effects, I'd go see it in a minute. Angel Cop is well worth watching for any fan of in-your-face, violent action anime.
