I like the idea. If everything has to be franchise based these days, let’s try what The War of the Rohirrim (WOTR) does. Not only are we telling a brand new tale barely related to the original movie tale, but we’re jumping into new mediums as well, going from live action to animated. Kenji Kamiyama’s vision doesn’t have the cleanest transition, but it’s at least trying something interesting with the studio parameters artists have to work with today. And frankly, combining anime stans with LOTR stans is going to lead to either a mega friendship or vicious civil war. Either way, I’m on board for the ride.
For the Lord of the Rings fans out there, The War of the Rohirrim is essentially Rohan’s origin story. 183 years before the Ring saga, we’re in the middle of Helm’s (Brian Cox) rule over the plains kingdoms. He’s got two faithful soldier sons Hama (Yazdan Qafouri) and Haleth (Benjamin Wainwright) and Hera (Gaia Wise), his sole daughter who’s half nature enthusiast and secretly a clever observer of the goings on in her kingdom. A Dunlending lord named Freca (Shaun Dooley) arrives to the capital Edoras with his son Wulf (Luke Pasqualino), asking for Wulf and Hera to marry, and join the two clans. Helm not only refuses, but insults Freca along the way, escalating the two rivals into a slow brewing feud that threatens to take down Helm, Freca and their children’s lives as well.
There’s good and bad here if you’re either an LOTR die hard or an anime fanatic. Let’s start with the LOTR fans. The War of the Rohirrim works best when it’s sneaking in references to JRR Tolkien’s amazing tales. The use of oliphants and horse battles, for example, gives us some of the highlights of the film, with characters flying over the plains and those horrifying oliphant spider-like faces scaring the bejesus out of everyone along the way. Places we’ve seen before earn their names in this film, in particular where king Helm’s nickname gets established. In general, when the references are part of an epic Middle Earth adventure sequence, it adds a nice little bit of spice to an already potent fantasy recipe. But the references are flying early and often, and many times Kamiyama stops his story to force in something to “keep the viewer’s engaged.” Hey, why is there a goblin gathering rings on the battlefield? Hmmm….I wonder where I’ve heard about rings before! Moments like these take us out of the perfectly fine Rohirrim story we’re watching and inevitably compare it to a far superior set of films barely related to the current adventure we’re on, inducing condescending eyerolls across the audience.
As for the anime fans, it’s a coin flip situation too. The drawings are frustratingly all over the place. When Kamiyama goes big in motion, the movie is as majestic as promised, with mountains surrounding a beautiful plains chase, or incredible land to water action sequences. But in the more still parts of the story, it appears that’s where the cost cutting took place, as we quick cut away to hide some of the animiation’s imperfections. As for the story, it’s a lot of standard anime stuff we’ve seen before: all the characters are cliches. The women come off best; Hera is a perfectly winning heroine, equally smart and strong. But the big winner is her handmaiden Olwyn (Lorraine Ashbourne), whom I could have watched a whole movie about instead. All the men are either giving Dragon Ball Z macho guy or Final Fantasy emo ranger, and none of them other than I guess Helm leave any lasting impressions, mostly because the dialogue is annoyingly on the nose at all times.
I admire the effort at least. The War of the Rohirrim with a few tweaks could have been a really cool Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind lite Miyazaki movie. I want to try more of these LOTR/anime mash-ups, to see what cool stories come out of it. And to see how these two fan bases interact with one another on a grand scale. In the words of Theoden: spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered. Ride NOW!!