review for Jin-Roh on AllMovie

In many ways, this film treads familiar ground for director Hiroyuki Okiura and particularly screenwriter and animé auteur Mamoru Oshii. Just as in Ghost in the Shell, this film vigorously questions the nature and the limits of humanity. Just as in Patlabor 2, this film depicts the intrigue, oppression, and fetishization of technology of fascistic organizations. And like all of their work, this film features a terrific attention to detail. Not only is the film's alternative take on history beautifully realized -- the film is set in some recognizable though undefined point in Japan's past, somewhere between the 1950s and the 1970s -- but the character's emotions and motions are expertly brought to life. And herein lies one of the film's flaws. Not content to be another animé with stock characters and cool explosions, this film focuses on the tortured psyches of the film's principles -- Kazuki and Kei. No matter how artful and subtle one draws a face, it cannot match a human's range of emotion, and as a result Kazuki's struggle to find a soul doesn't quite carry the movie. A work of unusual depth and beauty, Jin-Roh falters, but not because of a lack of ambition.