Red Hawk

Original Title: 붉은매 (Korean)
Romanized: Purk Eun Mai (Bulg-eunmae?)
Literal: The Red Falcon

Plot Synopsis

The Camellia Blossoms gang (think of the Mafia in fictional ancient times and you'll get the picture) plague the innocent with fires, death and using counterfeit coins to cripple the economy. Within this gang are the Five Dragons, a group of men and women trained in deadly martial arts. When the youngest and fifth ranking member of the group simply can't take anymore of the death, he rebels. With the aid of his brother, Muklyong, he escapes certain death. However, his brother must pay the price; with his soul...

Three years later, the counterfeit coins are taking their toll on the innocents of a small village. When a craftsman is killed, her daughter and her love interest, Junchung, begin to suspect there's a connection. Joined by the mysterious Yungyung, they travel to where he was last seen to unravel the mystery. And maybe the mysterious Red Hawk (the title's namesake) will make an appearance.

Quick Review

Rating: 2 / 5
Reviewer: Legion
Review Date: 2000-09-01

For the most part, Red Hawk is pretty standard fighting action. So standard, that lot of it is not very exciting. Not completely boring, but don't expect any real surprises or plot twists. The idea is decent and the characters aren't terrible, but until it finally picked up near the end it seemed to just kind of drag itself from fight scene to fight scene and what was put in-between just didn't keep my attention. The production values were quite good--fluid animation and attractive art--but until it finally kicked in at the end the fights were rather boring: Punch, kick, yell, fall down, get mad, and repeat until the bad guy loses. The dub is functional but not much more and unnecessarily heavy on the profanity.

In all Red Hawk wasn't awful, but it wasn't really all that good. If you're a fan of the genre, giving this a rental on a rainy afternoon wouldn't be a bad idea.

US DVD Review

Manga's DVD claims English dubbed audio in your choice of Dolby 5.1 and 2.0, character bios, and a photo gallery.

Content Guide

About a 13-up on account of violence and profanity in the dub.

Violence: 2 - There was a lot of fighting and some death, but not much blood and most of it was, oddly, white.

Nudity: 1 - A scene with the two love interests of our hero swimming in a lake with towels on.

Sex/Mature Themes: 0 - Just a light, possible love-triangle.

Language: 2 - Not overly offensive, but there was a lot of profanity used that seemed really silly for this title.

Notes and Trivia

Based on a comic series of the same name by So Joo Wan and Ji Sang Weol. It has been translated into French, but is apparently not available in English.

In an effort to head off people dead-set on insisting that if it's not Japanese, it's not anime, the editorial staff at AAW will politely point out that you're wrong. If you would like details on why, please see our essay on the subject. That does not necessarily mean that Red Hawk is anime, merely that the determination should be based on the style of the production, not its country of origin.

Note that the Korean title given above and its romanization are theoretically close, but were produced by someone who speaks no Korean at all; if you do and would like to correct it (or tell us that we got it right), we would appreciate it.

Availability

Formerly available in the US from Manga Video on dubbed (only) DVD or dubbed VHS. Both are out of print, and Manga's license for the title had expired as of this writing (2006). (If you're looking for it, you can still get it new or used from Amazon: Red Hawk - Weapon of Death)

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