Bruce Von Stiers

There are some animated titles that seem like they would be duds and are really pretty good. Others have trailers that make them look fantastic and then, when you watch them, you wonder what happened to the show you were supposed to see. An animated title that I just watched falls somewhere in the middle. It was a title that had good animation, adequate dubbing, but a storyline that is old and tired. This was a film called Baoh and it was released by AnimEigo.

The premise for the film is that there is this big, bad organization known as Doress. They have come up with some kind of parasite that can live within both humans and animals. This parasite causes whoever it invades to have incredible strength and kinetic powers. The parasite has a code name of Baoh.

The film opens with a scene on a train. Some men are trying to trap a young girl. She almost escapes from them but is captured. In the meantime, she helps set up a breakdown of an immersion tank. This tank holds a young man named Kuroo. He has one of those Baoh things in his body. Kuroo and the girl, Sumare, escape their captors.

From then on, there are chase scenes and fight scenes. There are more bullets fired than you’d find in some ammo depots. And buckets and buckets of blood. There are heads being torn off, chests bursting open, blood spurting out of bullet wounds and a whole bunch of other gore. Just your typical gorefest.

We see some corporate yahoos in masks watching a demonstration of how the Baoh process works on a dog. We also see people in the employ of Doress trying to assassinate Kuroo and Sumare. Guys like Agent 22 and Doran are armed and dangerous. But they are no match for the Baoh.

This story has been done over and over again. The big, bad, corporation experiments to come up with the ultimate weapon. Their subject escapes and they have to either capture or kill him. You know that the guy is gonna escape and wreck havoc on his captors. This version is far more graphic than I’ve seen done before.

The copy of Baoh that I watched was on DVD. I thought that there would be a lot of extras on the disk. I was wrong. The only extras were the Cast Credits (which are also seen at the end of the film) and a Cel Gallery with cels from the film. With all of that space that a DVD disc has, I expected a lot more extras than what was there.

There are language choices. You can have English with or without partial subtitles. There is also Japanese audio available. With the Japanese options you can have partial English subtitles, full subtitles or none at all.

This film is based off a comic by Ariki Hirohiko. It was produced by Fukakusa Reiko and directed by Yokoyma Hroyku. The screenplay was written by Terada Kenji.

The English Language cast featured Brian Hennant as Kuroo, Kem Helms as Sumare and Mike Way as the head of Doress, Dr. Kasumiome. There was also Dave Underwood, Sara Seidman and Chuck Denson supplying voices for the characters.

If you want a gorefest with buckets of blood, then Baoh is a great title for you. If you are looking for a great story then this is not a title for you. It also is severely lacking in the Giggle Factor (if you’re into that kind of thing). On the plus side, it does have great animation and the dubbing was really good.

You can find Baoh at some video and DVD retailers. You can also order it online from AnimEigo. Their web site is www.animiego.com. The film is recommended for mature audiences.