Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade

Jin-Roh (Japanese: 人狼, Hepburn: Jinrō; lit. 'Wolfman'), also known as Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade in its American release, is a 1999 Japanese anime action political thriller film directed by Hiroyuki Okiura and written by Mamoru Oshii. Based on the first chapter of volume 1 of Oshii's manga Kerberos Panzer Cop, it is the third film (first chronologically) in the Kerberos Saga after 1987's The Red Spectacles and 1991's StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops, and is the only fully animated film in the saga. The film stars Yoshikatsu Fujiki, Sumi Mutoh, Hiroyuki Kinoshita, Kousei Hirota, and Yoshisada Sakaguchi. Jin-Roh is set in an authoritarian postwar Japan in the saga's alternate history where Nazi Germany won World War II, occupied Japan (a member of the Allies in this timeline), and eventually denazified back into the Weimar Republic. Germany's attempts to globalize and modernize Japan spark civil unrest and the rise of the Sect, an anti-government left-wing terrorist group. With regular Self-Police unable to handle spiking terrorist activity, the Japanese government forms the Capital Police and their Special Armed Garrison "Kerberos", a heavily armed counterterrorist unit equipped with powered exoskeletons called Protect Gears. Jin-Roh follows Kerberos member Kazuki Fuse who, after witnessing a young terrorist he was ordered to execute kill herself in a suicide bombing, meets Kei Amemiya, who claims to be the girl's sister; their relationship develops in the midst of a violent interservice rivalry between Kerberos and the Public Security Division, the Capital Police's intelligence unit. The film premiered on November 17, 1999 in France, and June 3, 2000 in Japan. Bandai Entertainment and Viz Media licensed the film for an English-language release in North America and Europe in 2000. It has been relicensed in North America by Discotek Media, with a DVD released on April 29, 2014, followed by a Blu-ray on January 27, 2015. A live action Korean remake, Illang: The Wolf Brigade, was released in 2018, featuring a different setting and renamed characters but largely the same premise and plot.