Words can’t express how much I love this movie but I will try my best to… It’s a given that the plot is killer and it also has an awesome soundtrack, but what struck me the most was how visually stunning it is. Being filmed in New Zealand and also having Kou Shibasaki and Satoshi Tsumabuki as the leading roles probably helped with that a lot. Besides the shallow bits (on my part) the movie is one of the better flowing and well plotted Japanese live action movies that I’ve seen.

The story is sort of a warped retelling of Pinocchio. That is if Pinocchio’s biological father sold his limbs and internal organs to demons before he was born and then his mother pulled a Moses and set him adrift in a basket in the local river. Luckily there is a “Geppetto” who rescues the baby and is able to make him false limbs that can easily be converted to swords should the need arise. On Geppetto’s deathbed, our hero learns that for every demon he kills, one of his fake parts will become real until one day he’s a real boy!…er...human! On his journey he meets a young gender confused thief. Of course, they join forces and have fabulous misadventures.

I liked this movie even watching it in the theater in Japan and only understanding half of it (curse you Old Formal Japanese exposition scenes!). That is how good the story was. With subtitles the movie is even more wonderful, by the way!

If you like samurai or supernatural stories, I think even fantasy lovers too, would like this. I highly recommend it! It does deviate from the original manga in a lot of places, so maybe you wouldn’t be too keen on it if you were looking for a faithful adaption of Osamu Tezuka’s work. I thought it improved on it though. I liked how they changed Dororo, the young thief’s, character and made them more interesting and something more than "generic street urchin." It also helped me like the movie better in that they gave it an "ending," something the manga never had!