Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade DVD

In an alternate postwar Japan where Germany won the Second World War and occupied the country before eventually withdrawing, the capital city burns with civil unrest. Rampant poverty and political tension have given rise to the Sect — an armed anti-government movement that uses young women called "Red Riding Hoods" as couriers, carrying explosives through the city's sewer network to avoid the Capitol Police. Constable Kazuki Fuse is a member of the Kerberos — an elite, heavily armored special forces unit deployed against the Sect with extreme prejudice. Cornered in a sewer tunnel, Fuse watches a girl no older than a teenager detonate the bomb she is carrying rather than surrender. He had the shot. He did not take it. The incident sends him back to the academy for retraining and psychological evaluation, under the watchful eye of intelligence officers who have their own reasons for monitoring him. When he seeks out the dead girl's older sister — Kei Amemiya, quiet and composed and not quite what she appears — the relationship that develops between them becomes the center of a slow, devastating web of interservice conspiracy, institutional manipulation, and the question of what it means to be human inside a machine built to produce something else entirely.

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade is a 1999 theatrical film directed by Hiroyuki Okiura in his feature directorial debut, written by Mamoru Oshii, and produced by Production I.G and Bandai Visual. It is the third film — and the only fully animated entry — in Oshii's Kerberos Saga, a franchise rooted in his manga Kerberos Panzer Cop. The film draws an intricate parallel throughout with the original dark version of Little Red Riding Hood, using the fairy tale as a structural and thematic frame for a story about duty, manipulation, and the predator-prey relationship between institutions and the people inside them. The animation — overseen by Production I.G with character animation drawing from the same talent pool as Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor 2 — is extraordinarily detailed, with particular attention given to the weight and physicality of the Kerberos armor suits, rendered with a realism that was unprecedented in anime at the time. 

Released in North America on DVD by Bandai Entertainment on March 5, 2002; a Special Edition Anime Legends release followed in 2005 with expanded extras. 

Notable Staff & Voice Talent

Director: Hiroyuki Okiura (directorial debut; key animator on Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor 2)
Screenplay: Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, Patlabor)
Original Manga: Mamoru Oshii (Kerberos Panzer Cop)
Studio: Production I.G / Bandai Visual
Music: Hajime Mizoguchi

Japanese Cast:
• Yoshikatsu Fujiki as Kazuki Fuse
• Sumi Mutoh as Kei Amemiya
• Hiroyuki Kinoshita as Atsushi Henmi
• Kousei Hirota as Tohru Midorikawa
• Yoshisada Sakaguchi as Hajime Handa
• Tamio Oki as Commander Shiro Tatsumi

DVD Features (Standard Edition)

• Japanese Theatrical Trailer
• Production Art Gallery
• Bandai Entertainment Previews

DVD Features (Special Edition — Anime Legends, 2005)

• Jin-Roh Original CD Soundtrack
• Interviews with Cast and Creators
• 12-Page Jin-Roh Booklet
• Special Edition Slipcase
• Japanese & English Theatrical Trailers
• Production Art Gallery
• Japanese DTS Audio Track

Spoken Languages: English 5.1 & Japanese Audio, English Subtitles

Edition Details

Japanese Title: 人狼 (Jinrō)
Runtime: ~102 Minutes
Director: Hiroyuki Okiura
DVD Release Year: 2002 (U.S. Standard Release); 2005 (Special Edition — Anime Legends)
Original Release Date (Japan): June 3, 2000
Publisher: Bandai Entertainment
Rating: 13+
Region: Region 1 (U.S. / Canada)
Genre: Political Thriller, Dark Drama, Action
Themes: Alternate History Japan, Little Red Riding Hood Allegory, Elite Special Forces, Institutional Betrayal, Kerberos Saga

Media assumed VG+ unless otherwise noted.