Movie Reviews

100 Meters Anime Film Review

Published

4 weeks ago

November 9, 2025

“Wow, the main character sure looks like Rafal from Orb: On the Movement of the Earth,” I thought during 100 Meters‘ opening few minutes, where young protagonist Togashi tutors his classmate Komiya in sprinting. Turns out that the movie, directed by ON-GAKU: Our Sound‘s Kenji Iwaisawa, is based on a manga by Orb‘s Uoto. Upon initial publication in 2018, 100 Meters‘ five-volume manga was Uoto‘s big break into publishing, and follows the stories of two athletes from elementary school all the way to their professional careers in their mid-twenties. It’s a far cry from Orb‘s meticulously researched, dark, and dramatic historical drama. There’s an intensity to 100 Meters and its characters that do feel of a piece with Orb‘s, however, and they help to make this a magnetic film, throughout which I was transfixed.

Undoubtedly, the best sports anime film of the past few years is Takehiko Inoue‘s The First Slam Dunk, whose remarkable basketball game was visualized using advanced rotoscoping techniques. Rotoscoping can be divisive, especially amongst anime fans – just look at the incredibly mixed reaction to 2013’s Flowers of Evil, but there’s no argument with The First Slam Dunk – that movie utilized its techniques to maximal success. 100 Meter’s Iwaisawa is no stranger to the use of rotoscoping – his prior work, ON-GAKU, was a rotoscoped film based on his own self-published manga, and animated by amateurs. Iwaisawa took what worked with that film, and with a larger, professional team, applies it magnificently to the intensely competitive world of professional track and field.

There’s a combination of anime stylization and grounded, naturalistic look to the way that characters move in 100 Meters that manages to avoid that uncanny valley effect that sometimes plagues rotoscoped animation. In particular, there’s a profound sense of weight, of sheer muscle-shredding, teeth-grinding effort during the running scenes. They bring to mind Takeshi Koike‘s Animatrix short World Record, as the runners almost transcend reality for a scant few seconds as they chase practically superhuman record times.

If there’s a theme to the film, it’s “why do you run?”, and that answer is very different for each of the characters, and sometimes, when they lose sight of that, they fail. While some characters view each other as bitter rivals, in the end, what they are running against is themselves. I particularly liked older runner Zaitsu, who gives a speech to the younger pupils at school, giving hilariously awful, completely nihilistic advice, to the teachers’ horror. The thing is, it actually helps deuteragonist Komiya overcome his deep-seated anxieties, and drives him to succeed, though perhaps not in the healthiest of ways…

We learn very little about our characters’ lives outside of their love for the track. Protagonist Togashi is a quietly intense lad who is mindful of others, initially confident in his own abilities, and is wary of the fame he achieves relatively early in life. We see him struggle through crises of confidence, including one particularly brutal scene where he breaks down and cries in front of a pair of utterly bemused kids, great globs of tears and snot dripping onto the concrete beneath him. We’re left in no doubt about the meaning that running brings to his life, and the possibility that his future may be stolen from him by an injury is heartbreaking.

Komiya’s more of a mystery, a haunted-looking lad more in the vein of Death Note‘s L, with his dark eye shadows and awkward personality. As the story leaps across years, the characters change and grow physically, and it can be a little hard to track who is who. On more than one occasion, I mixed up one character for another for several scenes before I was able to confidently identify them accurately. I wonder if the source material had to be significantly edited to fit five entire volumes into the space of a single movie? Sadly, the manga is currently unavailable legally in English, so I can’t check.

By far the most impressive scene comes just over halfway through, at a rain-drenched athletic competition final. Comprised of a single long take filmed in live action, but meticulously painted over frame by frame, backgrounds and all, it’s a spine-tingling experience, full of motion, with a certain roughness, and brutal physicality to it. Togashi, standing alone in disbelief at the end, as his silhouette gradually disappears into the pouring rain, is a potent image. I shudder to think of the insane amount of work it must have taken to complete this scene.

The detailed backgrounds have the appearance of oil paintings, all-natural, almost photorealistic colors. Other, slow-motion shots look more pastel-like, and certain clever scene transitions, such as time-skips during running, are remarkable. The overall atmosphere is significantly enhanced by an excellent soundtrack, and I especially enjoyed the urgent, upbeat ending song Rashisa by Official HiGE DANdism, which suits the movie’s tone and subject matter perfectly.

My favorite character is Kaido, who we meet later in the movie as an adult athlete. His mirror shades never come off, and his full face beard makes him look a lot older than his fellow competitors. His characterization is immeasurably enhanced by voice actor Kenjirō Tsuda, whom Orb fans will recognize as the voice of the terrifying inquisitor Nowak. His line delivery via low-pitched drawl suits Kaido perfectly, and I love the role he plays in the story.

At first glance, 100 Meters‘ seemingly ambiguous ending may seem a little disappointing to viewers keen to learn which of the main characters ultimately “wins”, but that’s to miss the point of this story. As they each contend with their own motivations and those of their rivals, the ultimate answer to why they run is not to win, but “for us to give our absolute all, we need nothing else.” It’s a profound examination of the athlete’s psyche, and a refutation of the constant drive to win at all costs, while grinding opponents into the dust. That kind of mindset is shown to be harmful and unhealthy. Yes, winning is great, but what more can be asked of a person than to do the absolute best they can? Director Iwaisama clearly expended a great deal of time and effort to make this excellent film, and he should feel proud of achieving his best work so far.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review – A Private Life (2025)

Published

19 minutes ago

December 6, 2025

Press Room

A Private Life, 2025.

Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski.
Starring Jodie Foster, Daniel Auteuil, Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste, Luàna Bajrami, Noam Morgensztern, Sophie Guillemin, Frederick Wiseman, Aurore Clément, Irène Jacob, Park Ji-Min, Jean Chevalier, Emma Ravier, Scott Agnesi Delapierre, and Lucas Bleger.

SYNOPSIS:

The renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner mounts a private investigation into the death of one of her patients, whom she is convinced has been murdered.

The first order of business here is to note that the so-called renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner is French, meaning that Jodie Foster speaks French throughout the majority of co-writer/director Rebecca Zlotowski’s mystery A Private Life. Her accent and handling of the language are also impressive, and that alone is a reason to check out the film. It also must be mentioned that Lilian isn’t precisely a psychiatrist fully attentive to her patients; if anything, she seems bored by them, which is perhaps part of the reason why her mind concocts a riddle to solve within her recordings when a patient, Paula Cohen-Solal (Virginie Efira), turns up dead.

One of Lilian’s patients also shows up hostile, demanding that their sessions be finished as he has found a hypnotist capable of curing his vices (smoking) in a limited time. This also piques her curiosity and brings her to that same hypnotist, where, even though she is condescending and dismissive of the entire concept, she finds herself falling under a spell that could hold clues to uncovering the murderer. With that said, it’s as much a film about Lilian questioning her purpose and the methods deployed regarding her line of work as it is a crafty, twisty puzzle box to solve.

Divorced from her husband, Lillan gets roped into helping Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), who gets roped into her bumbling around, which inevitably leads to discussions about their failed love life. Similarly, Lillan also has a fractured relationship with her grown son, Julian (Vincent Lacoste), now a parent himself, with the running joke that whenever she stops by, the baby wakes up and starts crying profusely. Her personal life is rife with confusion, and her professional life is a bore, pushing her further and further into a mystery that might solely be in her head.

Not to give too much away, but there probably wouldn’t be a movie if there was absolutely nothing to solve here. Naturally, A Private Life has plenty of suspects that crop up from the tapes Lilian plays back to herself, searching for something that will point her in the right direction. It turns out that Paula also led a dysfunctional family life, but, more concerning, it could also be a suicide potentially aided by Lilian herself, once accidentally prescribing the wrong dosage of medicine. With the way some of those recordings are shot and presented in a hazy, hypnotic flashback form, complete with close-ups of Paula lying down on the couch, one also begins to wonder if there is a psychosexual angle at play here.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that A Private Life (co-written by Anne Berest, in collaboration with Gaëlle Macé) is also aggressively silly while cycling through every potential suspect, and that, even if there are clear answers here, the narrative is less about what happened and more about and more proper, present method of conducting therapy. The message the film ultimately lands on there isn’t entirely convincing. To be fair, everything involving the hypnotism is also quite absurd and strains credulity. However, it doesn’t take away from the fact that this is still an entertaining mystery with some compelling character work and an engrossing, controlled spiral of a performance from Jodie Foster.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist

Originally published December 6, 2025. Updated December 7, 2025.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review – Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair

Published

12 hours ago

December 6, 2025

Press Room

Movie Review – Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, 2025.

Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Starring Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madson, Daryl Hannah, Julie Dreyfus, Chiaki Kuriyama, Gordon Liu, Shin’ichi Chiba, Michael Parks, James Parks, Kenji Ôba and Perla Haney-Jardine.

SYNOPSIS

Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair unites Volume 1 and Volume 2 into a single, unrated epic—presented exactly as he intended, complete with a new, never-before-seen anime sequence.

Over 20 years after Quentin Tarantino’s two-volume revenge epic Kill Bill was released in theatres, the director’s complete vision of one unified film finally sees its wide release after only a few rare showings of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. The result is a reminder of some of Tarantino’s strongest work as well as Uma Thurman’s powerful performance as the blood-spattered Bride which is made more impactful by combining the two volumes into one.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that even after so long Kill Bill remains one of Tarantino’s best works in his long career. The film is a great mix of the western and martial arts genres full of memorable characters, snappy dialogue and incredible action scenes. The Bride’s battle with the Crazy 88 gang feels entirely new as The Whole Bloody Affair‘s unrated cut sees the fight’s black-and-white sequence restored to colour, allowing viewers to soak in (no pun intended) all its blood and gore. The original black-and-white still has its own shine, but one can gain a newer appreciation with the colour’s vibrant setting and stellar choreography.

The combined nature of the film also provides more nuance to the story and performances. With Tarantino having re-edited the ending of Vol. 1 to remove the cliffhangers and Vol. 2‘s opening recap, the narrative structure flows very well to better convey the overall story even with Vol. 2‘s more dialogue-heavy and story-driven focus compared to the more action-packed Vol. 1. The throughline with its story, themes and character development is much more noticeable in The Whole Bloody Affair than having to switch discs or streaming the next part when watching the films back-to-back.

This is where Uma Thurman’s performance really shines through. The Bride was already one of her best roles 20 years ago, but watching her performance in this nature really highlights the strength of her arc and nuances she put into the character. This is especially clear in the different versions of The Bride she portrays, from her assassin training to willing bride to determined avenger. No scene is this clearer in when she discovers her daughter alive and well, a fact that in this cut of Kill Bill the audience finds out the same time as The Bride, giving the revelation a much stronger gut punch due to Thurman’s emotions and her subsequent scenes with BB.

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair also benefits from additional changes. Aside from the removal of cliffhangers and the full-colour fight, some extra footage is added here and there but mostly in the anime sequence detailing O-Ren Ishi’s origin which includes a completely new scene of O-Ren exacting vengeance on another of her parents’ murderers. The new scene fits right in with the rest of the anime and is rich in its own right with the characters smooth movements and choreography. While it may not have been entirely needed, it is still very entertaining to watch and getting more backstory on O-Ren is never a bad thing as Lucy Liu made her quite a memorable antagonist.

Tarantino’s Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair shows how much stronger many of its elements are as one film as opposed to two volumes. From the fight scenes, the story, the writing and the performances, a whole lot more nuance is gained in this cohesive film particularly with Thurman’s performance. If you’re a fan of Tarantino’s earlier work and of the Kill Bill films, The Whole Bloody Affair is the definitive way to watch this iconic story.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Ricky Church – Follow me on Bluesky for more movie news and nerd talk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist

Movie Reviews

Merrily We Roll Along

Published

1 day ago

December 5, 2025

Press Room

Merrily We Roll Along tells a cautionary tale about the dangers of fame and fortune, and how the pursuit of worldly success can come at the cost of family and friends. Fans of the original production won’t be disappointed here (since it’s just a filmed production of the stage play), but should note that this story includes suggestive situations, some harsh language and plenty of drinking and smoking.