Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

Heavenly Sword Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 29, 2014

It may strike some videogame aficionados as at least a little strange that an animated film version of one of the defining early Playstation 3 games is appearing now well into the Playstation 4 era. Nariko (voiced by Anna Torv) was one of the seminal female warrior heroes (or, yes, heroines) for the then nascent Playstation 3 platform, and Heavenly Sword was lauded as an unusually fine amalgamation of typical battling levels with an overall narrative arc that tied everything together in a novelistic way. This may simply be a case of a project coming to fruition too long after its original gestational spark to create much fire (in the marketplace, where it really counts), but longtime fans of the game may be more perplexed by some of the odd decisions this direct to video offering makes.

Part of the original game storyline is continued here, with Nariko the latest in a long line of protectors of the titular heavenly sword, a blade that ironically sucks the life force out of anyone who deigns to use it. That aspect offers plenty of potential for some dramatic introspection on Nariko’s part, but instead Heavenly Sword tends to play out in more rote, external elements like big battle scenes, as Nariko faces down her nemesis, a power mad ruler named King Bohan (Molina). The visuals here nicely approximate the dense world of the original videogame, but the dramatic momentum here feels a lot like a bunch of cut scenes stitched together willy nilly.

Heavenly Sword Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Heavenly Sword is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This digitally created piece is slightly inconsistent, with some scenes and (especially) characters approaching photorealism, while others suffer from slight rendering problems which result in minor macroblocking and stairstepping on edges. Colors are quite bold and even provocative at times, with Nariko's red-orange mane of hair a real standout. Quite a bit of this outing is surprisingly soft looking (screenshot 5 is a good example of this tendency). Interestingly, some of the sharpest looking material here is non-rendered elements that resemble something more akin to traditional cel animation (see screenshot 4).

Heavenly Sword Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Heavenly Sword's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is strong on immersion but surprisingly weak on LFE. There's a glut of surround activity here, including the big action set pieces and even in some of the relatively more staid dialogue scenes. And while midrange and even some low range sounds great, there's not any real force to at least some of the subwoofer activity, something that a franchise like this which emphasizes big, bloody battles would seem to want to aim for.

Heavenly Sword Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Heavenly Sword (1080p; 14:55)


• Trailer (1080p; 1:35)


• Teasers (1080p; 6:04)

Heavenly Sword Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

My hunch is those drawn to Heavenly Sword are probably going to be just as apt to turn this off and play the actual videogame as they are to sit through a pretty predictable and unexciting video. Technical merits here are generally strong for those interested in checking this out.