The Bottom Line
Only for hard-core anime fans with a taste for fighting.
Pros
- Well-animated action adventure
Cons
- Clichéd characters
- Plot does not amount to more than a series of extended fighting sequences
Description
- DVD includes both "Shadow Skill: The Movie" and "Shadow Skill: Epilogue"
- Extras include photo gallery and character bios.
- Four years after his parents were slain by bandits, Gau returns to their graves seeking closure.
Guide Review - Shadow Skill DVD
As fascinating a genre as anime can be, many releases please aesthetically but fail to engage. "Shadow Skill" tells a fantasy story that is apparently preceded by a prequel and involves two siblings who possess special martial arts knowledge and do battle against various villans and demons. While the gory fight sequences are well animated, there is little here to hold the interest of a non-anime fan who looks to the genre for its frequent flashes of brilliance and adventurous story-telling. "Shadow Skill" feels like watching somebody else play a good-looking video game.
