Kuroshitsuji

After witnessing the murder of her parents, Shiori Genpo sells her soul to a demon, Sebastian, in return for his help in avenging their deaths. Since only boys can inherit the large company her family owned, she quickly assumes the identity of a boy, Kiyoharu, pretending to be her father's illegitimate son, and grows up in the magnificent grounds of her family estate, aided by her now-butler, Sebastian, a rather clumsy maid and other household help; as Kiyoharu, she takes on the family title of Count and is the head of the family's toy business empire by the age of 17. But she has never given up her search for the killer of her parents. In her other role, as a "guard dog of the Queen" (who rules the Western world), she is investigating a series of mysterious deaths-by-sudden-mummification. With Sebastian's help, she narrows the search to an invitation-only night club, but when she herself receives such an invitation, more than her own life might be on the line....

This is apparently based on a famous manga, also called Black Butler, which has received a number of treatments in the past, but this is the first big-screen, big-budget version. I'm not familiar with the manga, so I can't say whether the film is faithful to its source material, but as a film, it stands up well on its own. There's lots of action (both martial arts style and gun play), some very funny moments and, at the end, a quite reasonable set-up for a sequel. I don't know how well it's done in Japan, but at Montreal's Fantasia Festival, it was definitely a crowd-pleaser!

"Black Butler" is a beloved manga that my daughter and friends liked very much. So when a movie version came out, they were all excited to go see it. I have not read the manga "Kuroshitsuji" yet, so I felt I needed to see the film first myself before she does to see if it is okay for her age group. The local film classification board had rated it R- 13, but they had not been entirely consistent the way they classify films per appropriate age.

The beginning narration sets the film in a near future time, when the world was divided into East and West. The West was headed by a Queen who sent her "watchdogs" to keep her enemies at check.

In such a world, a "Demon's Curse" killer is going around killing diplomats by some sort of gruesome instant mummification process. Alarmed, the Queen chooses an orphaned aristocrat, Earl Genpo Kiyoharu, as her "watchdog" to get to the bottom of this matter.

The young Earl has under his service a butler of many skills, Sebastian, who does whatever his young master wills him to. It turns out that Sebastian's talents are because of his demonic nature, for which the Earl will have to pay for with his soul.

I believe that this film deviates much from the book by making Kiyoharu to be actually a girl Shiori pretending to be a boy in order to secretly exact revenge on her parents' killers. This also made it possible for a love angle to develop between master and servant, which of course was not in the original manga. The original setting in the manga was Victorian England, but here we only get the Victorian-looking grand manor and colorful gardens of the Genpo family instead.

The opening sequence alone where Sebastian takes on an entire warehouse full of gangsters only with his butter knife sets the incredible whimsical tone for the whole film. There would be violent fight scenes, murder scenes, death scenes, as well as scenes of drug abuse, and the disturbing demonic subplot, which would automatically make this film rated R-16 in my book. In between these violent scenes though, the film's momentum dips a lot with long talky explanatory scenes.

The acting department is on the campy side. The lead actors playing Sebastian and Kiyoharu are both androgynous-looking which seems to be the current rage among the younger generation. There was even more campy acting from the actors playing the clumsy maid Lynn and Kiyoharu's guardian, his Auntie Hanae. All the one-dimensional villains they faced also come from the same school of exaggerated campy acting.

Overall, this is a confused film with a rather convoluted plot which did not have a clear direction that it wanted to take. If we were to only judge it with this film, it does make me wonder what those fans of the original manga loved in it. This film alone is occasionally entertaining anyway but it most probably could have been done or adapted much better than what came out now.

Overly modernized in various ways, it only meets expectations when Sebastian takes out the dinner knives.

I think this film is based on an anime series. I don't know because I'm not into anime. However, I like Asian films and thought I'd give it a watch.

This film is about a girl who watched her parents be murdered. I don't really know how she came to do this but in some way she was assumed dead but had actually sold her soul to the devil in return for her ability to seek revenge. Her family were wealthy due to a toy empire but they are also in service to the Queen as her watchdogs. Being as how a woman was not going to be allowed to run the family, the girl returns to her home posing as a boy and takes on the family empire and the responsibility of the Queen's watchdog while also seeking her revenge. She is guarded by a butler who happens to be a demon who, upon achieving her vengeance, will devour her soul. She has to figure out the cause of a series of murders that are in some way linked to the death of her parents. That's all I'm gonna say about the plot.

I thought the film was a bit overloaded with information but it ended up being a good watch for me. There are some decent action scenes and there is a fairly decent storyline. I think it would've been better to have broke it up into two films so that everything could have been explained a bit better or with a bit more depth.

Not being a fan of anime, I didn't find this to be a bad film but it seems like fans of the anime story were disappointed. I dunno. I guess folks will have to draw their own conclusions. I found it to be interesting though.

Considering the original material includes a lot of sexual predators and age inappropriate sexual vibes involving a 12 year old, changes were going to be made. I am familiar enough with various forms of the original material and consider the changes to be easy to tune out. This is as close an adaptation as can exist in an international market. Besides, given the original material, why shouldn't the Butler have a new job? He's gotta eat.

Good effects and enjoyable live versions of classic set pieces from the original material. Sebastian still knows how to work a butter knife. The plot is goofy but not inconsistently goofy compared to the original. I'd watch more of these.