X/1999: Le film

This movie was great!....there was a lot of action and suspense! The animation was the best that I've seen....even though it was "saving the world" again the way it was set up was the bomb! there were many charcters....the fight between each rival (i.e. Kamui & Fuuma) was just amazing....the fight scenes were very bloody, but thats a good thing because in X when someone gets hurt you can already see blood. Not like in some other anime movies there is no blood anywhere....The way the characters interacted with each other really showed the reason why they were destined to fight one another.

If you like action, suspense, and "special powers"; X is the movie for you.....For those of you who didn't read the manga and just saw the movie and said that you didn't understand it....well thats your problem....I say read the manga first, then see the movie. Then you people can say what you want......I read the manga first!!! ^_^

Everything about this movie is great;the animation blends perfectly with the CG effects (unlike some American cartoons),the soundtrack is one of the best I ever heard and acting is top-notch.

This movie isn't complete without a couple of flaws however. The depressing and disappointing ending will only make you say "That's it?". This is due to the fact that the manga series is unfinished and still far from completion (the manga is said to be 22 books long and so far only 11 of them has been published as of this writing,with vol.12 coming soon).

Another flaw is that certain points of the storyline aren't explained in the movie,only in the manga,and most of the characters lacks development. You barely get to know a supporting character before they die.

It is still a good film,but I recommend you to read the Manga before watching the film (which is available in English through Viz Communications) in order to have a general understanding of the story.

X is an excellect film if you understand it, nothing irritates me more than a bad movie critic, to be a good one you must understand what you are critiquing...

One the title X makes perfect sense:

Definitions of X

1) a symbol to often symbolize an unknown in mathematics.

2) the 24th letter in the English Alphabet

3) The Roman Numeral for the number 10.

Words that contain X such as X-ray, X-generation, X Day (an unknown day) are often used in everyday language, this X brings a sense of something unknown or not being able to be understood. Everyone would know the ever Famous "X Files" with FBI agents Scully and Molder that try to explain the cases of the supernatural, the X in that would be a same meaning to that. So Clamp's X would have the same meaning too.

In X there is a combination of previous works such as "Tokyo Babylon" and "Clamp School Detectives", (which one should see before the movie X anyway) apart from that X also contains elements of the supernatural such as "Ying Yang Shu", "Feng Shui and people with super powers which adds yet another mystical atmosphere to it.

From the points above, X definitely is not a simple or single story, but is very complicated with many different elements. It looks like the "unknown" theory definitely suits or is incorporated in some way in the title.

2 swords, the opposing Ten no Ryu and Chi no Ryu could also be seen in the Structure of the letter "X" and how there are opposite sides to everything.

So basically, X is good if you have the mental capacity to understand it, it's not a film for someone expecting simplicity, it's a film for people who like to get more out of a movie experience outside of pretty colours.

This movie will probably only have deep or lasting appeal to fans of the manga series. Standing completely on its own, however, it really leaves a lot to be desired. The plot is really quite simple, but the setup is at least somewhat interesting, with the supposedly "bad" guys fighting for the future of the planet by destroying mankind and the "good" guys fighting to save mankind from the aforementioned baddies. For the most part, the main character just spends his time brooding over his "fate", occasionally displaying a burst of sympathy for an old girlfriend. This made it very hard to view him as being very human, and thus to sympathize with him or his place in the gigantic struggle taking place. Some of the incindental characters, however, showed a great deal of personality. But alas, only seemed to be introduced to die in a semi-climactic fight scene five minutes later with little to no characterization in between. The graphics are, as stated by others, top notch. The fights get fiery very quickly, and the big dollar property damage ensues as you'd expect when fates collide, but they tended to end all too quickly, with no real explanation as to why the killing blow was successful. So, if you want to see pretty pictures, or are a real die hard fan of anime for its style alone, you'll probably get enough of a kick out of this. But if you're looking for animation that will engage you on several levels and introduce you to interesting characters you'll actually get to know, steer clear. Indeed, Princess Mononoke actually touches on very similar themes in a much more engaging way.

I'm not an anime fan myself, but these movie is a HUGE exception. The landscapes look extremely natural, the characters have personality and the sound track is solemn. But what took my breath away were the fight scenes, that no matter how violent and bloody they were, they didn't fall into the shameful gore category. Actually, they looked strangely beautiful, metaphoric and aesthetical. I loved the detail of the sakura leaves rain and how Kamui couldn't ever catch them. If you're into anime, this is a must see. If you're more into human films, like me, this is a must see for you too.