Anime films come and go. Some are great works of art, some are great works of entertainment, some manage to be both. But many manage to fall through the cracks and barely do either. "Blade of the Phantom Master" (or "Shin Angyo Onshi" as it calls itself) is one such case, and I can only believe it to be due to poor project management.The hero of the film is Munsu (the synopsis says his name is unknown, but he does say his name without much hesitation or secrecy). He is a Amen Osa (again spelled incorrectly on the box), a warrior trained with the ability to call upon a hundred phantom warriors to carry out his bidding. But the kingdom of Junshin has fallen, and the title of Amen Osa means nothing anymore... ok, I don't really know how the back-story plays into anything, and its poorly told enough to leave you confused if you hang onto it for too long. All you need to know is that Munsu wanders around helping people from the corrupt politicians and demonic beings of the land, and a girl he sort-of rescues tags along halfway through as his bodyguard.The characters are unusual. Main hero Munsu isn't really a hero: he clearly states that he doesn't really care about people and would kill anyone in his way. He only fights for justice, but his sense of justice is questionable. He looks and acts like a western cowboy, very much out of place in this otherwise Japanese medieval society. His own life is his number one priority, and resorts to questionable acts to preserve himself while still risking his life and time towards his heroic motives. Basically, a unusual and flawed character. The girl he saves was subject to bondage and imprisonment and hypnotism, and upon rescue and knowing that her boyfriend had died, decides to follow Munsin on his journeys. She is mostly mute, and also continues to wear her revealing bondage outfit and nothing else, making her a one-dimensional piece of sexual fanservce, although that fanservice doesn't get used enough to satisfy that type of viewer.As unlikable as the characters are, the story isn't terrible, just poorly organized. It's clear that this was meant to be a television series or a series of ova shorts, but that the production studio stopped early and just compiled what they had into a film. According to the Internet, it was a Korean/Japanese co-production based off a manga, which is supposedly much better. The film feels like two or three television episodes that are entirely unrelated to each other. If viewed as that, the adventures aren't too bad, and deal with interesting themes. The action isn't too bad either, although the movie feels both violent and cute enough that it doesn't feel appropriate for any particular audience. The character designs are ok, but with either questionable or generic outfits, but notably the backgrounds are hand-painted, and while the simplicity is refreshing, it is the only instance where I've seen characters with more details then the world they live in (this isn't a good thing). Audio is similarly basic, and the English dub does little to save it.
This movie desperately wants to be a hardcore action classic ("Ninja Scroll" is a likely example it was striving for), and some parts of it are refreshing enough to make it worth buying at a bargain bin price, for which it is easy to find this for. But there are just so many other films and shows that are better than this, even if you are looking for a mindless action flick. Poor direction, poor localization, subpar film.