One Piece Film Red is in UK cinemas now.
Synopsis
One Piece is an action-adventure series following Monkey D. Luffy and his crew the Straw Hat Pirates – each with their own dreams and fun personalities – as they journey across the world’s seas in search of the “One Piece” treasure, left behind by the King of the Pirates, Gold Roger. Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates have been on countless adventures over the years, fighting everyone from fellow pirates to the Navy who police the seas, and more – all in the name of staying true to their dreams.
Review
The Straw Hat’s are back for another big screen adventure on the high seas! The 15th film in the series’ incredibly long and rich history, this time putting the focus on a young woman from Luffy’s childhood and her connections to one of the Emperors of the sea, Red Haired Shanks.
The film’s main focus is on a young woman named Uta, a world famous singer loved by all for her captivating voice and inspiring songs. She is hiding a secret from her fans and only the Navy knows the danger she presents to the world.
For starters, this film is chock full of incredibly catchy songs and beats, never before has the One Piece series or films delved into music as much as this movie has. Ado (the actress who does the singing in the Japanese dub of the film) has an incredible voice that affects the viewer as well as those around her in the film.
The rest of the cast deliver their strong performances they have perfected across the many years of the show (which itself started back in 1999). I’m confident the English dub also delivers with its voice cast which now includes famous Youtube singer/voice actress Amanda Lee (also known as AmaLee) as well as the well-chosen voices for the Straw Hats as picked by Funimation.
The story has its twists and turns with some very surprising plot twists that had left me gawking throughout. Beyond the Straw Hats though the ensemble cast is huge! While not as big as their previous film Stampede, Red includes pirate crews from the manga/anime’s past which may leave many viewers who are not as familiar with the One Piece story feeling a bit left out. The plot tries to educate on the many characters but does expect the viewer to be familiar or an expert on all of their powers.
Without giving too much away (which the trailers have done a good job at keeping things obscured enough to not spoil it) the focus is on young Uta and her incredibly powerful Devil Fruit the Sing-Sing Fruit which grants her incredible powers far beyond what we have seen in the world of One Piece prior. It falls to Luffy and his crew, along with some allies and foes from their past to put aside their differences to help save the entire world from a rather disturbing fate.
Being a Shonen anime, One Piece never fails to deliver on its fights and gives us a lovely plethora of battles throughout the movie, showing team ups you’d never expect to ever see!
This is also the first time we have seen the Red-Haired Pirates in full battle mode, prior it’s only ever been alluded to or the reactions of other powerful characters, as a lifelong fan of the series it was incredibly satisfying to see this legendary crew show off their skills!
Verdict
One Piece Film Red is full of action, humour, absolute banger songs and enough heartbreak to shatter to the strongest of hearts. While it’s not the friendliest of films to newcomers, long-time fans of One Piece will love the ever-growing list of characters popping up throughout the film and the unexpected tag teams we briefly saw.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
