Film Review: ILLANG: THE WOLF BRIGADE

Illang: The Wolf Brigade is a South Korean live-action adaptation of the animated movie Jin Roh Wolf Brigade (who is based on the manga by the name of Kerberos Panzer Cop saga. The original takes place in a Japan where the Germans invaded with Japan, ending up with fascism as there way of government after the collapse and rebuilding that occurred due to the invasion. The story focuses on a soldier in the special forces that rethink his life after a child blows herself up in front of him.

In this live-action version, the story takes place in South Korea. Instead of being invaded by Germany, South Korea gets in trouble because of outland interference that tries their best to stop North and South from reuniting. But besides that, the story is pretty much the same.

The animated movie is one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s a beautifully animated movie about a broken soul who tries to make peace with himself in a corrupted world. As someone with my own personal demons, the movie was easy to relate to even though I don’t have the exact experience or life situation. With that In mind, I think you all can understand that I got quite curious when I found this newly released live-action adaptation hanging around in Netflix’s library of movies and TV shows.

So I went to the kitchen, made me some tea and a sandwich and pressed the play button. After watching this movie, I sure have something to say about it.

Is it a bad movie? I have to say no on that. It’s one of the better manga adaptations I’ve seen. Is it perfect? No, it’s not, but then again no movie is (at least in my opinion). It’s not better than the Bleach live-action movie, but it is far superior to the recently released Full Metal Alchemist.

The movie does a solid job when it comes to adapting the story and ideas that are in the original while trying to be its own thing, and the acting was great all around the board with action well choreographed and filmed.

However, I cannot help but wonder if this was first meant as a TV adaptation. It’s not because of the budget, because you can see that the budget was for a blockbuster. It’s because of the pacing that the movie has. While I did watch a 138-minute long feature film, it felt like I was watching two with no credits in between.

But even with the pacing in mind, the movie is still something I sooner recommend to watch instead to tell you that this is something that you should skip. If you ask which one you should prioritize to watch, then it’s easily the animated one.