Fist of the North Star Movie (1986) Review

Note: This is a copy of a review I posted to MAL. I may write different kinds of reviews and whatnot from this style, but I figured this was a good starting point.

With a popular manga and successful airing television adaptation, Toei Animation decided to produce a movie for Fist of the North Star in 1986. Unlike many of their other summer anime and tokusatsu movies, which were just slightly extended episodes, this was going to be a feature length movie to serve as a partial gateway for people into the series. It’s often held as a pinnacle of 80’s battle shonen, but now that the genre has grown so much over the past few decades, how does the movie hold up?

The basic story is that nuclear war has destroyed the world, leaving a post-apocalyptic wasteland populated by biker punks, huge muscle men, and high-powered martial artist warlords. Kenshiro trained under his master along with his adoptive brothers learning Hokuto Shinken, a deadly martial art that causes people’s bodies to contort and explode by touching their pressure points. After the apocalypse, his friend Shin brutally wounds Kenshiro, taking his wife Yuria and leaving him for dead, and his brother Raoh kills their master and seeks to rule this new century for himself. Meeting two kids along the way, as well a a fellow martial artist name Rei trying to save his sister from Raoh’s forces, Ken goes on a journey to save Yuria and defeat Raoh.

Much like the 1980’s Dragonball movies (although this came first, so it's more accurate the other way around) the movie is an abridged retelling of the first few arcs of the anime, albeit with some characters and roles shifted around. It doesn't follow the manga exactly, but it leaves out a lot of the anime's early filler episodes. While this means that the movie is briskly paced, that also means a lot of character moments are left out. As much fun as it is to pretend the series is just apocalyptic-explodey-fisticuffs, and it’s not terribly deep as far as battle shonen goes, the personal struggles of the characters are still a key part of making the story’s stakes feel tangible. There’re still some moments, but the main plot feels like it's trying to cram in as many different arcs as it can in its 110 minute runtime. The story is still comprehensible and entertaining, but a lot of the buildup for the characters and their relationships feels lacking and rushed. In that way, it serves almost as a highlight reel of the series’ biggest moments, and while it does a good job at introducing newer people to the setting and story of the series, it doesn’t quite hold together as a full coherent movie.

While the plot is the weakest part of the film, it more than makes up for it with its spectacle. All of the most iconic scenes from the series are retained and rendered in their full glory. Part of the fun of Fist of the North Star is the catharsis of seeing so many despicable people getting absolutely curb stomped with karate and flashy martial arts, and the film absolutely delivers on that. Seeing Kenshiro’s crunchy punches, Rei’s slicing fingers, and Raoh’s powerful blasts tearing through people is a visceral delight. It doesn’t have the rapid flying, intense acrobatics, and huge energy beams from shonen like Dragonball, but if anything, that helps the action feel more tangible and impactful. There’s no new huge transformations or super modes, though Ken’s powers do grow over the movie, but the fight scenes are fun in an old-school martial arts flick kind of way. A lot of the battles are a one sided, but they remain a delight, and the film makes up for it with its close, tense final duel.

The art looks incredibly crisp and detailed throughout the movie. The colors are vibrant, the post-apocalyptic wastelands are rendered with so much texture, and the shading of the characters and the glow of the battle auras still looks impressive. The actual animation can be a tad stiff at points, especially with some walk cycles, but there’s so much weight and impact to the movements that it ends up working out. The movie isn’t too ambitions with its animation, at least compared to some of the other films of the time, but there are still some very impressive cuts throughout, like a continuous car chase that pans from the ground to a bird’s eye view of the wasted city. The designs are undeniably 1980’s, with huge mullets and mohawks aplenty, but it’s fun for the Mad-Max-esque feel to the world.

The background music is also solid, mixing lush orchestra with hard rock, funk, and classic anime brass. It’s nicely varied and does the job, but the two vocal tracks by Komodo Band are even better. The insert song “Heart of Madness” is cheesily awesome in the way only 80’s hair metal can be, and the sequence where it plays while the rest of the scene is silent is one of the highlights of the movie, and it remains one of the best insert song moments I’ve ever seen in anime. The power ballad “Purple Eyes” playing over the credits ending sequence, again playing a scene with only music, is a great finish to the film. The sound design is also excellent, with every hit feeling crunchy and powerful.

One of the big selling points of the movie is the more uncensored violence and gore compared to the limitations of TV. What's here is appropriately ludicrous, but there's a major snag. Because of parental complaints, the available releases of the film have a blurry effect around some of the more gruesome kills. On it's own this wouldn't be too bad, but there's always a drop in the video quality once the filters come on, which only sticks out more on higher definition transfers. This isn't the fault of the film, but it unfortunately remains an issue for any viewing.

What's more annoying is how inconsistent it is. Someone's fat stomach exploding is blurred to the point of unintelligibility, yet there's one point where we get a full close up of someone's head exploding, with their brains and eyeballs splattering that remains uncensored. A guy's head popping off and his neck spurting gets a dark filter, yet people being hacked to pieces with axes and chomped in a mouth remain just fine. Many of the kills are still in their full gory spectacle, but the filters are a minor distraction throughout the film.

The sub retains all of the voice actors from the TV show giving a great performance. The English dub made in the 90’s is mediocre in the way a lot of early 90’s dubs were, with some name changes, stilted performances, and muddied details. The sub is the better option for trying to fully enjoy the movie, but the dub is good for a more schlocky viewing experience.

All in all, the Fist of the North Star movie is a gorgeous, great action romp that’s easy to recommend.  As an actual movie, the story is a bit lacking, but as a fun spectacle that’s meant to be a gateway into the series, it does a solid job. What it lacks in deeper substance, it makes up with in action, art, and music, and it’s a great movie to sit down and enjoy the ride.