I watched this movie a few months back and it left some small impression I still carry today. I decided to watch the film again to see whether my perspective has changed and what I could have missed during the first view. The Empire of Corpse was first aired last October 2, 2015, written by Project Itoh and produced by Wit Studio.
Project Itoh was also known for his other novels Harmony and Genocidal Organ. Both two movies I plan on watching in the future as well. Empire of Corpse didn’t gain much of traction and I only heard about it when I was browsing on niche anime genre. The themes found on the film are for mature audiences and is produced where art of storytelling becomes a priority. I like watching this type of film because it gives me a better option than settle for the commercial type of anime. You know, the ones that gave up the art of storytelling and dwelled into fan service.
Project Itoh was also known to be closed with Hideo Kojima. I can’t blame Kojima for finding a kindred spirit in Itoh, his novels can vibe with Kojima’s creativity. I only scanned some of Itoh’s works (the translated ones anyway) but never finished one. You may want to check out Itoh’s other works if you’re into stories with philosophical themes.
Plot:
You can read about the full story with spoilers on this wiki link but it contains a lot of spoilers. My version below cuts most of the details but gives the gist of what to expect from this movie.
Set in the 19th century steam punk version of England, reanimated corpses are now a common norm for the world. Everything in daily life involves seeing a zombie do menial tasks for its owners. These dead bodies are now the most efficient blue collar labor force to any nation. Being a corpse that can only do what their owner asks devoid of free will is a life hack anyone has access to. You don’t need to spend a lot of money maintaining their cheap labor or pay attention to the common demands a human being could want.
This world was made possible through Victor Frankenstein’s experiment in the previous century. Victor managed to create a perfect living corpse with a soul (capable of thinking and acting as if they were alive), which will be later be nicknamed as The One. He also created another version after his first creation was assumed destroyed but this was an imperfect prototype due to absence of locking in a soul to the body. To substitute the lack of free will and intelligence, the corpse is programmed by a tech called Necroware. Now you can program the dead to do your bidding.
John Watson, an aspiring corpse engineer (the physician for corpses), reanimated his friend’s dead body and renamed it Friday. All corpse need to be registered and making your own reanimated body can lead to imprisonment. Watson was motivated by a discussion he had with Friday when it was alive. Does a soul exist or does a dead body even when reanimated can still possess a soul?
Watson was caught by British Empire authorities and was made to choose between cooperating with them or face imprisonment. Because we need a story to happen, Watson decided to cooperate and was sent on a mission to retrieve the Memorandum (Frankenstein’s research journals) together with his automated servant Friday.
The journey is a combination of searching the self for answers, meaning to living, what the soul is, life, and what the answers given can mean to the one seeking. A whole bunch of ideas pitched in that can make you think about your own mortality. It doesn’t force you to think as you can just watch it passively but part of the viewing experience is minding the struggles that drive the characters.
We may not understand what it’s like to have our loved ones still are around after they have come to pass. But what would it mean for us if they were kept alive after they have passed? Or would it matter to us when our time has come to pass and we live as part of the dead census?
The journey has some interesting dynamics on how the film portrays automated zombies. There are scenes on the film that are absurd and can make you question on what ethics does this world run on to have allowed corpse to exist as they are. Even wars are no longer fought by the living.
Thoughts on the Film:
The film captured what a dystopian reality where steam punk meets horror universe. It’s truly disturbing to how the dead can be incorporated to society as part of the standard normal. Even in death no one can escape servitude. Criminals can be executed and their bodies be used for the greater good of your nation’s economy. Loved ones prolonging their grieving or be maladaptive in their coping as their dead significant other still walks the earth as a former shadow of themselves.
The original soundtrack fits the overall mood of the film. It has sorrow, longing, questioning, and a mood the goes well with being morbid. Though it didn’t leave any lasting impression on me when I first heard it, but after revisiting some tracks I learned to appreciate its own form of expression. The morbid or gloomy atmosphere was highlight well with the palette choices.
The first parts gave you a feel of watching an Indiana Jones film especially during the carriage chase scenes. There's little humor applied on the film but that's not really an issue because none of the characters were written to be comic relief. The action scenes were unremarkable but that's understandable because the focus was on the tension building.
One climactic scene involving Watson and Friday struggling under the sewers while the movie rolls some flash backs had me more excited that seeing zombie assassins moving like ninjas strapped to a bomb. It's the tension of how each character's a driven to propel the story to move forward that got me. None of them felt like symbols but real characters filled with understandable motivations.
Is the movie worth the watch? I think so. It’s not a movie recommendation meant for people new to anime but a good film to watch if you want something that has sci-fi, philosophy, and horror lumped together. It’s not even focused on the horror but on the quest for answers. What can life mean after death can be reversed? Would the value of life be any different when the person was dead or alive when perfect reanimation is possible?
