O Mordomo de Preto

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

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!

Please forget the opinions of manga fundamentalists. To quote the Black Butler, "their opinions slightly fuel my wish for killing". They are not alone on this world and these movies are made for more general public who do not have encyclopedic knowledge of the respective fictive universes. So their fundamentalist dismissals of movies based on this argument are totally off the mark.

I have seen the Black Butler movie for the very first time and I have kinda liked it. Of course, there is an incredibly complex storyline that makes the Japanese stories hard to follow for us, the plain West village folks. It might be a hard thing to swallow for some but it is worth it.

The story is actually a near future sci-fi fantasy crime movie. Even though this might seem to be bizarre, it is actually very cool. The plot is somewhat familiar for the Westerners as it builds on the West culture. The uneasy relationship between the "master" and "servant", that is somewhere between the love and the hate is also very interesting. The "master" might seem spoiled and much more powerful "servant" might seem cold and cynical, but the ending is really powerful.

Forget the critics. This is very "above average" drama, a crime movie and a somewhat bizarre love story. Pretty much unforgettable experience. And yes, the opening sequence is one of the most amazing combat scenes I have seen: If you meet a well dressed butler with a butter knife asking politely for something, you should not laugh at him. You should not!

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.

Although I love Japanese movies, I haven't seen a lot of anime (i.e., animated Japanese TV shows and movies). That doesn't mean I am not familiar with it--it just isn't something I watch very often. A few years ago, when my oldest daughter was in high school, she drug me to some anime conventions and got me to watch a few series with her, such as "Death Note", "Azumanga Daioh" and "Sergeant Frog"--but I am certainly no expert on these shows nor the printed version, manga. So, when you read my review, it is NOT coming from a rabid fan--and from what I read, rabid fans of the original TV series and manga "Black Butler" were not especially pleased by this movie version. So, for you lovers of the original "Black Butler", this review might not at all be very helpful--I'm just a guy watching a movie who has no basis for comparing it to the original.

From what I've read and learned from my daughter, the original show featured a 12 year-old boy as the protagonist. However, here he is now 17 and a girl--and, oddly, posing as a boy in order to maintain the family title and estates. Additionally, instead of being set in Victorian times, the movie is set today. I am pretty sure these are not the only changes, but these are a few of the obvious ones.

The back story is that years ago, someone murdered Genpou Shiori's parents. Genpou serves the Queen of the West and is one of her secret force, The Queen's Watchdog. Their job is to serve their queen and ruthlessly pursue anyone who threatens her or her kingdom. As I mentioned above, she is posing as a young man and goes by the title 'Earl'. Assisting the Earl is his/her faithful servant, Sebastian. However, Sebastian is no ordinary fellow...he's a demon who does anything she wants--including killing the Queen's enemies. It seems that when Genpou Shiori's parents died, the boy sold his soul to the Devil in order to gain the services of this demon in order to assist in his quest for revenge--an obvious variation on the old Faustian tales.

The film begins with the pair on a mission to infiltrate a gang involved in the sex slave industry. Not surprisingly, Sebastian uses his amazing powers to wipe out the entire gang...but armed with only a butter knife!! ?? This and several other fight sequences within the film are insane--full of incredible action and which will keep you on the seat of your pants. However, what follows is not all action--in fact, in places the film can be quite talky and full of unnecessarily dull and complicated exposition by the baddies. When the film is in high gear, it is clever and intense. But, when folks start explaining things, then I felt as if I should take a shot of No-Doze! The plot that follows is amazingly cool and disgusting. It seems that there is some serial murderer who has so far made eight ambassadors turn into mummies!! One moment, they seem normal and the next they are bleeding from their orifices and the next they look like beef jerky! Obviously something horrible is afoot and it's up to the Earl and Sebastian (as well as the clumsy yet amazing maid) to save the day.

So is it worth seeing? Well, it's not bad and I mildly enjoyed the film. As I mentioned above, the show did have portions that were just too talky and I also disliked how many times the film backed up to show you what REALLY happened--this seemed like bad writing because it was used so much. But, it's tough not to like Sebastian and the process by which folks became mummified and how is amazingly original. Not a must-see film but worth your time.