King of Bandit Jing Vol. #2

By Dani Moure     March 07, 2004
Release Date: March 15, 2004



What They Say
No priceless bauble or exquisite jewel is safe from the leering eyes and stealthy hands of Jing, the King of Bandits. With a heart of gold and girl-crazy albatross sidekick Kir, Jing steals his way through one exciting adventure after another!

The Little Girl From Technicolor Town: Jing and Kir find themselves on a whirlwind rescue mission in the Technicolor Town of Pompier to save a young girl placed on the auction block after being transformed into an art masterpiece. The evil Drambuie wants to make her a part of his art collection, but not if Jing and Kir have anything to say about it!

The Eternal City Of Revaiva (Part 1): Jing and Kir embark on another adventure after meeting Vermouth, a young girl who requires their assistance on her mission to discover eternal life. Unbeknownst to them the hunter Pernod and his partner China Lilet are close at their heels, hoping to get their hands on the treasure first!

The Eternal City Of Revaiva (Part 2): Unknowingly leading the meddling duo Pernod and China Lilet there behind them Jing, Kir and Vermouth arrive at the city of Revaiva. The trio meet King Cointreau, who believes Jing's fate is to be their next king! However Jing foresees the lurking danger and takes matters into his own hands...


The Review!
The second volume of Jing manages to keep up the momentum of the first with three more good episodes.

Audio:
Continuing from the last volume, I listened to the Japanese stereo track for my review. I noticed no dropouts or distortions, and the mix itself continues to be solid, if nothing amazing. I spot-checked the English 5.1 track again, and noticed no problems. It's got a slightly more immersive feel than the stereo track.

Video:
Once again this is a gorgeous transfer. With the show airing mid-2002, the print is obviously in great condition, and it shows. There are only a few brief moments of aliasing; other than that, I noticed no problems.

Packaging:
The second cover is just as strong as the first, with an interesting mix of Jing and Kir, in colour, slightly behind two of the women from these episodes who are posing, but are purely in shades of green. It's an interesting effect that looks really good. The logo is up in the top-right, and perhaps the only downside is that it doesn't stand out all that well (which might not be a good thing on store shelves). The back cover has a description of the show, as well as short synopses for each of the episodes on the disc. While technical details are all clearly listed in the various boxes of information, one omission is the lack of a list of extras. Granted, there aren't many, and it may have been due to lack of space, but it's still something that is a bit annoying.

Menu:
The menu system is perhaps the most plain part of the package. Once again the main menu is a static image, with the options sprawled over zoomed in cover art. Episode selections from this menu take you straight to the start of the episode (there's no scene selection facility), while the two sub-menus have different static images. Access times are fast, but there's a distinct lack of variety considering each of the menu pages also plays the same music.

Extras:
We get just over a minute and a half's worth of production sketches in music-video style here, which are again very nice, but not exactly the most meaty extras. The obligatory clean opening and closing also return, but that's about it, unfortunately.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the episode count dropped to three since this is a shorter series, the second volume of Jing flies by, even more so since episodes six and seven form a two-part story. But despite the drop in runtime, the quality of the show remains.

The first episode on this disc has Jing and Kir arrive in the Technicolor Town of Pompeii, where they find a girl, Fino, being sold off at an auction. Naturally, the pair jump in, create a distraction and swipe her. But the winning bidder is not happy, and wants Fino for himself, as she's not only a human, but also the masterpiece of artist Van Kuot, her father. He painted on anything and everything, and even Fino's bird companion is one of his works. But there's one piece of his work that's supposedly his greatest ever, a vision that no one has seen, supposedly unfinished and stashed away in his studio. Jing wonders why it's not been destroyed, so they set out to find it, but Drambuie is still after both Fino and this painting.

This episode really stands out from the crowd for one reason ? the striking visuals. The town itself, and most things in it, is very detailed, and itself looks like a painting. The contrast between the look of this town and what we've seen before in Jing (and indeed, the two episodes after) makes it all very different. Additionally, to go with the more art-like quality in the backgrounds and other areas is a different approach to the directing.

Throughout the episode, the shots and angles become much more abstract and creative than usual, and it works really well, especially within this "artistic" episode. For instance, at one point you see Jing speaking to Postino on his motorcycle, and the angle subtly switches from a straight on view to the reflection in the bike's mirror. There are also times when people will be speaking, and shots will switch between various items (such as flickering candles), and shadows on the wall and the like, rather than the usual "talking heads" approach. While it might normally be a little superfluous, it comes off well here given the subject matter and gives the episode an extra visual edge, without which it might not seem quite so good. Not to say that the story is bad, in fact it's quite interesting, just that the change in visual style makes it a bit more interesting.

This episode is followed by another two-part story, revolving around the city of Revaiva. Jing and Kir meet Vermouth, who gets them to go on a journey to find everlasting life. She leads them to an ancient battlefield, where they're to find the sword of Arthur (she claims this is the key to eternal life), but they're being followed by Pernod and his companion China Lilet. He seems to get hold of the sword first, but a robot quickly appears, chasing him and destroying the sword. Jing pulls what appears to be a worn old sword from the ground and uses it to stop the robot, but it soon picks Jing, Kir and Vermouth up and carries them away. The second clue is to find an acrobatic snake in the wall of an old building, but once again Pernod and China Lilet are back to try and thwart them.

After successfully deciphering all the clues and overcoming the adversities, the three eventually reach the city of Revaiva, where they meet the last remaining person in the town, who claims Jing will be the next King, and the secrets of eternal life are revealed. And Pernod and China Lilet are still in pursuit.

This story is another entertaining ride that benefits from the extra time given to tell the tale. I really enjoyed the eternal life aspect, and how Jing first worked to find out the secrets, but ultimately turned it down. In that respect, I thought it was a great way to show some of Jing's maturity in the way he thinks. He may have a great sense of humour and be an awesome fighter, but he's not the dumb, bratty bandit king out for whatever he can get. He thinks about things and makes choices based on thought rather than impulse. Despite his constant womanising and joking around, Kir also has his head screwed on and often seems to look up to Jing and the choices he makes. It's also interesting to see how Vermouth essentially plays Jing and Kir to get them to do what she wants, as a bit of a test to see if Jing really is the next "King" that was spoken about.

Along with showing even more facets of Jing and Kir, we also got a few nice supporting characters here. While Pernod and China Lilet were essentially just fodder to provide some antagonism on the journey, they were fun in doing so, and were a great device to help inject some action into what could have otherwise become an story that just got bogged down in the philosophies of eternal life. Thankfully, they kept the pace up and were quite entertaining, and the various female companions met during the episodes had some nice interaction with the two leads.

This batch of three episodes, on the whole, was far less focused on action than the first disc. While there is still a fair amount here, certainly enough for those who enjoyed it before to sink their teeth into, it's more peripheral than before, in that the drive of both stories was the story itself. When you add in that the characters were fleshed out even more, this was a very good volume overall. There was also a little hint at a bit of a drive for Jing, in that at the end of episode 7 he mentions seeing his mother again.

In Summary:
The second volume of Jing holds the quality of the first, both in terms of production and the show itself. The nice package holds a batch of three very entertaining episodes, with some nice experimentation and further characterisation. While there's still no overall plot to speak of, it really doesn't matter as the stories being told stand on their own really well. If you're looking for an enjoyable way to spend an evening, Jing may well be for you, though be warned ? it might leave you wanting more.

Features
Japanese Language,English Language,English Subtitles,Clean Opening,Clean Closing,Production Sketches

Review Equipment
Philips 28" Pure Flat Widescreen TV, Pioneer DV-464 code free DVD player, JVC gold-plated RGB SCART cable, standard stereo sound.