Redline Review

Redline (2009) is a Japanese animated movie produced by Madman entertainment and directed by Takashi Koike. Redline follows the movies protagonist, ‘sweet’ JP (Takuya Kimura and Patrick Seitz) as he attempts to enter and win Redline in Roboworld and woo fellow racer Sonoshee ‘Cerry-boy Hunter’ McLaren (Yuu Aoi and Michelle Ruff).  However, the racers are in trouble as the rulers of the world that were chosen to host the Redline race, aren’t to happy about it. Not only do the racers have to elude the weapons from fellow contestants, they also have to dodge the terrible weapons of Roboworld.

Redline is an extremely fun film, filled with  wacky, colourful high-speed action sequences reminiscent of fellow Japenese anime TV series Speed Racer, and a little bit of the older Fast and Furious movies. The movie took the crew seven years to make, due to it being almost entirely hand drawn. Nearly all scenes are filled to the brim with excitement and action or something going on in the background. These features show how much the crew worked on the project.

Despite his initial appearances, JP is a great, seemingly carefree and fun loving individual. I ended up caring more for him and his insane co-stars, than I ever did for Fast and Furious protagonist Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) or any other characters in that franchise. And yet Fast and Furious is known to pretty much everyone, while Redline exists in obscurity. Do yourself a favour and watch Redline.

by Tim Rice