Shenmue: The Movie

*Reviewed by Dagger Lee

This movie based on the video game on Dreamcast which is actually an edited version of the long game turned movie.

Story:

Yokosuka, Japan - 1986
source:www.spcnet.tv

Ryo Hazuki returns to his father's dojo and notices that there's a black car parked outside. Ryo enters the dojo and sees his father fighting with a mysterious man in a dark Chinese dress. Hazuki Sensei gets hurt and Ryo tries to beat the mysterious man but couldn't. The mysterious man asked for the mirror or else Ryo would get killed. Hazuki Sensei tells but gets killed because he was accused of murdering a man. The mysterious man leaves with the mirror and Ryo is left with his dead father.

The next day, Ryo decides to find the man who killed his father. During his investigation, Ryo discovers that the murderer's name was Lan Di and that he was part of a gang in Hong Kong. Ryo receives a letter sent to his father saying to find Master Chen if he ever needed help. Ryo finds this man and discovers that Lan Di is now in Hong Kong. Also, he learns that the mirrors Lan Di were looking for were the phoenix and dragon mirror. Apparently, Lan Di has only the dragon mirror. Then, Ryo leaves for Hong Kong by boat and is supposed to meet Master Lishao Tao when he arrives there. The story continues...

Thoughts:
I really despised the CGIs in this movie because it were really scenes from the video game on Sega Dreamcast. I felt like watching someone play a game instead of watching a movie. The graphics didn't impress me and it didn't have any enhancements at all. What makes me more disappointed was that anyone could've made this movie, even bootleggers! I almost fell asleep because of this.

The audio is actually dubbed in English. The dubbing sounded okay to me but I prefer subtitles. I was disappointed that the Japanese version does not have English subtitles at all. To me, watching movies in its original language is better than watching dubbed versions. The audio is the same from the game and is in stereo. So far, the sound seems okay to me.

The DVD comes with Shenmue 2 on XBOX and is a nice treat. I really liked this since I didn't play the first game before and I own an XBOX. I didn't like the features of the DVD. It only has trailers, Japanese audio, English audio, and Japanese subtitles. I was even more disappointed that there weren't any English subtitles since I wanted to watch it in Japanese. Anyway, I still liked this additional package.

Conclusion: I only recommend this to gamers who are about to play Shenmue 2 and have never played Shenmue 1 on Dreamcast. I really despised a lot about this film and can't recommend this to anyone. I heard that there is going to be a Shenmue 2 movie but I won't watch it.