Queen Millenia / Millennial Queen (1982)
Queen Millenia (1982)
DVDRip | MKV | 720 x 464 | x264 @ 1200 Kbps | 120 min | 1,41 Gb
Audio: Japanese AC3 2.0 @ 384 Kbps | Subs: English (embedded in MKV)
Genre: Animation, Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-fi
DVDRip | MKV | 720 x 464 | x264 @ 1200 Kbps | 120 min | 1,41 Gb
Audio: Japanese AC3 2.0 @ 384 Kbps | Subs: English (embedded in MKV)
Genre: Animation, Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-fi
In the year 1999, astronomer Professor Amamori has discovered a tenth planet within the solar system. Unfortunately, he also discovers that it is set to collide with the Earth on 9 September 1999, at 9:09:09 AM. Professor Amamori makes preparations to save the planet, aided in his campaign by his nephew Hajime and his secretary Yukino Yayoi. Unknown to anyone, Yayoi harbours deep secrets: LaMetal crosses paths with Earth (and wreaks chaos) every millennium, it is home to an advanced civilization who enslave any human survivors of the cataclysm, and she herself is the Millennial Queen, a special citizen of La Metal who comes to Earth every 1000 years to prepare for the this passing. However, she also hopes to save Earth, for though she is from LaMetal, she cannot stand aside and let her home world destroy the planet and its natives that she has come to love. And so she begins a desperate struggle of her own.
… It's all very beautifully done, with the kind of baroque design touches that so often distinguished works based on Matsumoto. The futuristic trappings are all rendered in deep, warm colors and rounded shapes. The costumes tend to be based on past eras. In the climactic battle between Earth and La Metalle, the Earth men use archaic weapons taken from the History Museum, ranging from WWII-era tanks and fighter planes to ancient catapults and cross-bows. The short, rounded cartoonish design of Hajime and Amamori is contrasted with that of the tall, slender, attractive women around them and the long-haired, fairly realistically-drawn men from Yukino's planet.
Underscoring it all is a rich, evocative music soundtrack by New Age composer Kitaro. There are some memorable wordless musical sequences, such as one showing the people of La Metalle slowly emerging from their thousand-year sleep and awakening to embrace each other and enjoy the "Spring" on their strangely colorless planet. Another sequence has Hajime being shown aboard the underground Ark and led down a very long corridor housing the dead former millennial queens as we see images of them from the past slowly flying by. Much later, three of these queens, all famous figures from different countries' lore, Himiko (Japan), Yang Kwei Fei (China) and Cleopatra (Egypt), come to life to aid the current Millennial Queen.
It's an emotionally moving, exquisitely designed work, one of the best to emerge from the pen of Leiji Matsumoto, and it deserves to be seen in the U.S., where it is not currently available. The lovely end song is sung, in English, by Dara Sedaka (daughter of one-time American pop star Neil Sedaka).IMDB Reviewer
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Queen Millenia / Millennial Queen (1982)
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