King of Thorn

“Botany is a sequel of murder and a chronicle of the dead.” – Julian Hawthorne.

One keen aspect for British anime fans concerning this film is that it is mostly set in a castle in Scotland. Having said that, the setting is only a minor element to a movie which is more concerned with action, shocks and conspiracy.

King of Thorn starts with a problem. According to the scenario, on 12th December 2012 (four months ago at the time of writing this review) a young woman died in New York, having turned to stone. So it is safe to say that this film already has some issues before it gets going. The cause of the petrification is the Medusa virus (which for some reason is spelt “Medousa”), a highly infectious disease which turns people into stone and is always fatal.

In desperation to find a cure, a drugs firm called Venus Gate offers to put 160 people in cryogenic suspension in the hope that they will be able to find a cure and save the human race. On 13th October 2015, these people are placed in a cryogenic centre in the aforementioned castle. And when they wake up, they discover the entire building is covered in massive vines and thorns, and that strange carnivorous monsters have infested the site.

However, seven people manage to escape the perils of the creatures. These people, including a young Japanese girl called Kasumi Ishiki, decide to try to find a way out of the building and figure out what is going on. Have they slept for thousands of years and these new creatures have evolved? Was it some new sort of mutation? Or is it something else entirely? For that matter, what was Venus Gate really up to?

In terms of positives, the action is top-notch. When we first discover the creatures that the survivors have to deal with it is pretty shocking, especially considering that the part of the body they tend to go for the most is the head. The biggest shock comes when a large group of freshly released survivors try to escape via a lift shaft, only to find there is no lift – instead there is a gigantic wormlike being. The most eye-watering moment, however, is when one man gets trapped in the lift-shaft doors.

While these elements were decent enough, much of the rest of the film leaves a lot to be desired. The film differs significantly from the original manga (which was previously released in English by Tokyopop) with different storylines and some characters removed altogether from the original story. Also, the computer-animated scenes in the film are rather jumpy and nowhere near as smooth as they could have been. Also the plot gets a bit confusing towards the end, which itself is different from the one in the manga.

Overall then, while King of Thorn may have some thrilling highlights, the story and the animation let it down somewhat.