Customer Ratings & Reviews

One of the few ways to be exposed to the great, but unfortunately Japan-mostly, series. Highly recommend if you follow the series or have genuine interest in seeing the movie on current platform.

Good movie, goes great with the show. I was very happy to be able to purchase the bluray dvd save combo.

Genre: Drama, Action Length: 85 minutes "When something wicked stages chaos, the Imperial Fighting Troupe sends the divas of the Flower Division to drive steel through evil's spotlight! Sweet Sakura, glamorous Sumire, adorable Iris, tactical Leni, mechanic Kohran, Kana the martial arts master, exotic Orohime, and stoic leader Maria are always ready for action! Just as a fresh face joins the ensemble, other members begin to vanish one after another. When a deviant virtuoso unleashes demons to terrorize Tokyo, it's up to the maidens of metal to pull their act together and drop the curtain on evil!" Not much to say on this one that's really positive. After finishing the series a couple months back, I was excited to see the movie being rereleased in Blu-ray as well. Going from the previews, I thought it was a newer release with pretty good graphics, but it really isn't. The movie originally came out in 2001 and even with a Blu-ray makeover, it shows its age on its sleeve. The plot: It's pretty basic in this one. The girls fight the demons, the girls get pulled from fighting the demons, the demons overrun the city, the girls break the rules to get their mechs back and fight the demons. Lachette, a new character from the American branch has arrived in Tokyo to join the Flower Division. Sadly, she doesn't really serve any purpose except for the last 5-8 minutes which still has me scratching my head. I won't spoil it for anyone but let me know if you figure it out. The graphics are decent, but definitely a bit on the aged side. IG usually does very good CG animation, and for the time I suppose it was pretty good, but it felt way too flashy with the mechs. Really wish they had stuck to the cell-shaded drawings like the series had. Luckily, the movie is in full wide-screen format to fill up new TVs. Voice acting: To tell the truth, I really disliked both the original Japanese audio as well as the English voice acting. The English version really lacked the emotion needed for a good portayal. And the Japanese version had too much *Engrish* going on! I know English is exotic to Japanese, but for me it really killed the scenes. Sakura Wars: The Movie is decent. Watch it if you've seen the series or played the games, but if you've done neither then I recommend you stay away. No background knowledge is provided during the movie even for the new characters. It's on my shelf, but I don't foresee myself watching it again.