This is probably Ralph Bakshi's greatest achievement. What you have here is swords and sorcery cel-animated movie with all the style of Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian. Bakshi collaborated with famed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta in making the imagery of this movie and it shows. There is an intelligence to this movie that stands out above just about all of the barbarian movies made even up to now (with the original Conan being the only exception).They use a rotoscoping technique that gives the animation a lifelike fluidity found in some of the classic Disney movies like Sleeping Beauty, but keep in mind this is by no means a Disney movie. In other words: THIS MOVIE IS NOT FOR CHILDREN. There is a heck of a lot of violence and scantily clad people on this picture. While it is rated PG I think by today's standards it's more PG-13.
As a hack and slash, barbarian warrior kind of movie this is great. If you loved Conan the Barbarian, The Beastmaster and other movies of this sort then you will love Fire and Ice. For the longest time there was a DVD release in Europe but none yet in the states. Now they finally released this movie for the U.S., and the DVD comes with some really nifty extras (making of featurette and a Frank Frazetta documentary). Unless you find this VHS copy dirt cheap I would recommend getting the DVD instead.
The story is straightforward sword and sorcery, kingdom of Fire vs. the evil kingdom of Ice. As in Bakshi's other best movies, it's rotoscoped cel animation over painted backgrounds, a combination I like a lot. That gives completely natural movement to the animated figures, and great atmosphere from the backgrounds.
There were a few negatives in this DVD. First was transfer quality. There's a visible amount of "snow" in many places, enough to notice, but not enough to get in the way of the movie. Then there's the inherently loose relationship between the cel animation and the backgrounds a few scenes seemed to have the characters skating across the surroundings. Excessive reality can also be a drawback. Teegra, the female lead, spent a lot of time running from the bad guys. Unfortunately, she tended to "run like a girl" (and I don't mean Jackie Joyner Kersee) she rarely conveyed the athletic or panicked sense I would have expected of a woman running for her life.
The positives far outweigh the problems, though. Frazetta's characters are richly drawn: lush womanly figures, mighty males, grunting hench-beings, and the Death Dealer. The story holds together, and the rotoscoped actors did great jobs. And the DVD extras wow. I normally ignore them. These aren't just a few stills and a trailer, there are interviews with Bakshi, diary notes from one of the actors, and a whole second disc dedicated to Frazetta and his work ("Painting with Fire"). I haven't gone through all of the extras yet, but they earned that fifth star for this set.
It's not as "adult" as Fritz the Cat and other of Bakshi's work, but it's certainly not for the kiddies, either. But then, not all animation has to be. Highly recommended.
//wiredweirdThis is probably Ralph Bakshi's greatest achievement. What you have here is swords and sorcery cel-animated movie with all the style of Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian. Bakshi collaborated with famed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta in making the imagery of this movie and it shows.
They use a rotoscoping technique that gives the animation a lifelike fluidity found in some of the classic Disney movies like Sleeping Beauty, but keep in mind this is by no means a Disney movie. In other words: THIS MOVIE IS NOT FOR CHILDREN. There is a heck of a lot of violence and scantily clad people on this picture. While it is rated PG I think by today's standards it's more PG-13.
As a hack and slash, barbarian warrior kind of movie this is great. If you loved Conan the Barbarian, The Beastmaster and other movies of this sort then you will love Fire and Ice. For the longest time the only DVD release was in Europe, but not that the DVD is released also here in the states (along with some neat extras) there really is not reason to hunt down this movie on VHS.
Since there is hardly any information at all about this movie I thought to included this synopsis that was taken from the back of the video box (not an entirely accurate plot summary, but it will do):
Fire and Ice, an animated adventure film, is the work of the imaginations of Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta, masters of fantasy and illustration. A tiny village is destraoyed by a surging glacier, which serves as a deadly domain for the evil Ice Lord, Nekron. The only survivor is a young warrior, Larn, who vows to avenge this act of destruction! The evil continues, however, as Nekron's palace of ice heads straight towards Fire Keep, the great fortress ruled by the good king Jarol. When Jarol's beautiful daughter, Teegra, is abducted by Nekron's subhuman ape-like creatures, Larn begins a daring search for her. What results is a tense animated battle between good and evil, surrounded by the mystical elements of the ancient past!
Read Best Reviews of Fire and Ice (1983) Here
I saw this for the first time in 1987. I don't know how it escaped my attention when it first came out. I was a huge Frazetta fan back then and this would be a dream come true. I watched it over and over on a taped copy I made from Cinemax. It was a bad tape but I loved it. Now almost twenty years later it's not as great as I remember but it also hasn't aged as badly as I was expecting. The thing that struck me most was the heavy lines on the characters. The characters almost looked like a Hanna Barbara cartoon. They reminded me of the Superfriends or Space Ghost. There is an odd mix of poor quality drawings and some pretty compelling art. The rotoscoping is a neat technique and it makes for some good action scenes. And some of the background art is spectacular.The plot is paper thin but no worse then some live action films I've seen. The voice acting reminded me a lot of the first Heavy Metal movie.
Fire and Ice is an interesting movie if you're a fan of Frank Frazetta or into fantasy and animation.
The thing that makes this DVD worth the purchase is the documentary "Painting with Fire" about Frank Frazetta. When I was younger I had a few books of his works that I would memorize. His art meant a lot to me and his life is fascinating. I never realized how tough his early years were. You just assume a giant talent like this was getting rich right off the bat. It turns out he was struggling and some lucky breaks helped to launch his career. He's been through a lot of adversity but bares it with an upbeat optimism. After six strokes he had to learn to paint using his left hand.
It means a lot when the comic greats like Bernie Wrightson, John Buscema, Dave Stevens, Neal Adams are gushing fanboys. Everyone interviewed has nothing but good things to say about him. He's apparently a good friend and great father.
The inclusion of the documentary is a valuable bonus that makes the Fire and Ice DVD worth buying.
Want Fire and Ice (1983) Discount?
After over twenty years I finally got to see this movie. When it came out, it got terrible reviews, and only stayed in theatres for a couple of weeks before being pulled. Although I initially wanted to see it, I assumed that it did so poorly because it sucked, and I quickly forgot all about it. Well, all I can say is that I wished that I had took the time to go see it then, because this is by far my favorite Bakshi film.I won't go into the plot, because 1) other reviewers already have and will, and 2) I hate spoilers. It basically has the "Star Wars/Pirates of the Caribbean" trio of main characters; the gallant but slightly green youth, the jaded rogue with the heart of gold, and the damsal in distress who can hold her own. There's nothing extraordianary or original about it. Its basically a hero's journey/revenge/boy meets girl story.
But if you're a fan of Frank Frazetta, you have to see this movie. Many of his most famous images are brought to life. The princess is right out of the paintings of Dejah Thoris/Cat Girl/Egyptian Queen. For a cartoon, she's extremely hot and ridiculously curvy. She also wears an "A cup" bra over a pair of double Ds (very Frazetta!). The hero is obviously modeled after the guy who fought the giant snake on the cover of the old paperback "Wolfshead". The evil queen is right out of the painting "Sea Witch", and the thugs are Franzetta's neanderthals. The bad guy Necron looks like Elric of Melnibone, although I don't recall Frazetta ever painting that character. Strange.
The audio and video quality is extremely good. The plot moves at a brisk pace, and the action scenes are exciting and extremely well choriographed. The rotoscoping is much improved over Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings", which looked cheesy and "fake" to me in some of the scenes.
I'm glad I finally got to see this movie, and in my opinion it is worthy of future viewings. Let's face it, if you like Sword and Sorcery films, there are very few quality titles out there. Hopefully, with the success of "Lord of the Rings", and the advent of CGI, this will be rectified in the future. In the meantime, its good that titles such as this are finally available. Highly recommended.
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