SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, It Ain’t! Author: Michael Kure Source: ADV Films

ADV Films presents JING, KING OF BANDITS: SEVENTH HEAVEN (O Dorobou Jing:Seventh Heaven, 2004), a feature length animated movie animated by Aniplex (RUROUNI KENSHIN) and directed by Hiroshi Watanabe (MYTHICAL DETECTIVE LOKI RAGNAROK, SLAYERS) Synopsis: They call it Seventh Heaven: an asylum of a prison roasting on the lowest ring of Hell. Run by a psychotic warden and his army of hockey-masked guards, it’s a festering pit filled with thousands of hardened criminals… plus one very unfortunate Bandit King and his loyal, feathered sidekick! And as if THAT didn’t suck enough for our heroes, toss in a magician who uses stolen dreams to trap his victims in bizarre worlds of illusion who then sets his beady eyes on Jing and Kir! So how does the star of a hit anime series escape from the biggest bird cage ever when “the Man’s” locked the door and thrown away the key? Find out as the boys (and bird) behind bars take on the big house in JING, KING OF BANDITS: SEVENTH HEAVEN! I enjoy prison films as much as the next guy, but this one was just plain bizarro. In JING, KING OF BANDITS: SEVENTH HEAVEN, our spiky-haired hero, Jing (also known as the Bandit King), and his annoying but invaluable companion Kir, a talking bird (yes, a talking bird), are sent to Seventh Heaven, an inescapable maze of a prison populated by a legion of alien murderers, cutthroats and scum, and lorded over by a vampiric warden and his horde of angel-like guards in hockey masks (does sound intriguing, no?) Note: the reason Kir is so important to Jing is because when the two of them “bond” Kir transforms into some kind of powerful super-blaster weapon called The Kir Royale, which is pretty much the ace up their sleeve for getting out of any kind of jam. Anyway, Jing and Kir are inside Seventh Heaven for the sole purpose of stealing the unstealable – dreams. These dreams come in the form of orbs, created by a man named Campari, who found a way to crystallize any dream into colorful orbs, and then sell them to those-who-no-longer dream (pretty much everyone), allowing their fondest fantasies to come true. But Campari is no push-over, and in the second of three installments, Jing is imprisoned in a dreamworld of his own past, and it is here that we meet little Jing and his friends, and learn of how Jing met Kir for the first time (while Kir was still an egg.) Jing ultimately escapes from this dream-prison while also managing to finally gain the trust and friendship of Campari by giving the dream master something he thought long lost and gone. This is a key moment, and I certainly won’t spoil it for you here. Suffice it to say, in the final installment, Jing and Kir pull a Mr. Miracle and escape from Seventh Heaven, with no small thanks to the Kir Royale, and leave the warden and his guards eating their dust while proving, too, that Jing’s street cred as “The Bandit King” remains bullet-proof. In the end, I didn’t feel as if I wasted 90 minutes watching this DVD. I enjoyed the jaunty soundtrack, and the English-language voice characterizations were all done expertly enough. Admittedly, this was my first exposure to the world of Jing, not having been aware of the previous anime series and manga by Yuichi Kumakura. But I don’t think I’d be in any rush to revisit this world, much less re-watch this DVD. By the way, as a footnote, those of you into the crazy visuals of those amazing German Expressionism silent films of the 1920s, such as THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, will get a kick out of some brief stylized shots done in the same vein, as used in the first installment. It certainly was a pleasant surprise for me. JING, KING OF BANDITS: SEVENTH HEAVEN is an anamophic release presented in both English 5.1 and Japanese 2.0 with English subtitles. Video extras include a production gallery and previews of upcoming ADV Films releases. Running Time: 90 minutes Age Rating: TV PG UPC: 702727173523 Street Date: 11/20/2007 SRP: $29.98