Gekijouban Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feel - I. Presage Flower

From its stunning animations to the lovely soundtrack, Fate/stay night [Heaven's Feel] delivers production values that are off the charts. Unfortunately, that is pretty much where the magic ends.

The story is a bit of a mess, incomprehensible to everyone but the die-hard fans of the series. I have casually watched Fate Zero (i.e. The prequel series) and Unlimited Blade Works (i.e. The alternate story path series) and nevertheless regularly found myself confused. As a stand-alone movie Presage Flower simply doesn't work, but even as the first installment of a three-parter it is heavily flawed.

The mediocre story isn't helped but the terribly bland characters, featuring the earnestly wholesome orphan boy protagonist (He wants to be a hero of justice!), the demure and passive love interest (I'm sure she has no terrible secrets at all.), that serious mediaeval swordwoman most people vaguely know from pop culture, the obligatory adorable yet homicidal little girl, and the even more obligatory miniskirt-wearing tsundere with a twin-tail hairstyle. And I'm afraid that these were the sums total of their characterisations. Do they have dreams, fears, desires beyond their most defining feature? I sure don't know, but hey, that sword fight with the magic beams sure looked nifty!

I wish I could say that the other two movies make up for Presage Flower's weaknesses, but although they are better, they still aren't great. Altogether, Heaven's Feel was not worth the time investment for me, but I'm sure fans of the franchise will get their fill.

I watched this film the first day it screened nationwide in North America. I found this film to be very entertaining, as a fan of the Fate series. The prequel to this series, Fate/ Zero has garnered a huge hype for future Fate adaptations by ufotable. When its sequal, Fate Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works came out, I was very disappointed. The entire series was a mess, pacing wise, the characters were very boring and overall the transition from VN to an animation on screen was incredibly underwhelming and executed badly. With these elements in mind, I was a bit hopeless on how this adaption would turn out.

I was wrong. This film exceeded my expectations by A LOT (they were pretty low considering UBW). Ufotable turned the scales up to an 11 with their animation. Many of the fight scenes were very fluid and well animated, and the designs were improved, as a different director took the spotlight in the trilogy. And thankfully so.

The sound designs, and the soundtrack is memorable and complemented the scenes and animation very well. It's also good to mention that the composer for "Fate/ Zero" came back to Fate to compose for this trilogy, so there are traces of Zero themes to be heard throughout the movie.

Some of the story elements were changed to fit the movie slightly better than if it were a carbon copy of the VN, and those changes I can appreciate a bit more. This allows some anime original content to be put in, and a better understanding of the characters.

This movie is NOT for people who haven't read the VN or have at least seen UBW, as this movie skip some elements already explained in UBW.

This was confusing at first and up till now i don't have any idea, maybe 2 I'll be able to understand better cause this is really making me want it more.

Story-line => 4/5 (The plot is not clear yet); Acting => 4/5 (No particular character stood out in acting but overall it was good.); Directing => 5/5 (The presentation was nice and the planning to not repeat what is already show was nicely transitioned. ); Animation => 5/5 (Treat to the eyes); Screenplay => 3/5 (The screenplay was not very deep like Fate Zero); Personal Recommendation => 5/5 (If you watched Fate Zero and UBW, you must watch this and the later 2 parts also.);

Overall Personal Rating => 8.7/10

This is truly amazing, the story is far better than unlimited blade works.