Fate/stay night[Heaven's Feel] Ⅰ.presage flower

FATE/STAY NIGHT [HEAVEN'S FEEL] I. PRESAGE FLOWER

MOVIE

MOVIE
Dubbed
SOURCE
VISUAL NOVEL
RELEASE
October 14, 2017
LENGTH
120 min

DESCRIPTION

The first film in a trilogy adaptation of the third route of the popular visual novel: Fate/stay night.

10 years after the Holy Grail War—a battle waged by Masters and Servants over the wish-granting container, the Holy Grail—another war breaks out in Fuyuki City. Shirou Emiya—the adopted son of Kiritsugu Emiya, a participant of the previous Holy Grail War—is leading a peaceful life with people dear to him. Especially close to him is his underclassman Sakura Matou, who brings kindness into his otherwise lonely life. But once the Holy Grail War starts, Shirou’s peaceful life is sundered.

(Source: Aniplex of America)

CAST

Sakura Matou
Noriko Shitaya
Rin Tohsaka
Kana Ueda
Artoria Pendragon
Ayako Kawasumi
Shirou Emiya
Noriaki Sugiyama
Gilgamesh
Tomokazu Seki
Kiritsugu Emiya
Rikiya Koyama
Archer
Junichi Suwabe
Kirei Kotomine
Jouji Nakata
Illyasviel von Einzbern
Mai Kadowaki
Cú Chulainn
Nobutoshi Kanna
Medusa
Yuu Asakawa
Medea
Atsuko Tanaka
Taiga Fujimura
Miki Itou
Kojirou Sasaki
Shinichirou Miki
Heracles
Tadahisa Saizen
Leysritt
Miho Miyagawa
Shinji Matou
Hiroshi Kamiya
Ayako Mitsuzuri
Fumie Mizusawa
Sella
Haruhi Nanao
Hassan-i-Sabbah
Tetsu Inada
Issei Ryuudou
Mitsuaki Madono
Soichirou Kuzuki
Masaki Terasoma
Zouken Matou
Masane Tsukayama
Tatsuko Gakumazawa
Batsu

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REVIEWS

CodeBlazeFate
73/100
Presage Flower is truly unsettling, in a number of senses that is in and of itself, only describable with this word.
Presage Flower is truly unsettling, in a number of senses that is in and of itself, only describable with this word. There is little comfort to be had, as the brutal fights, lavish detail in Ufotable’s visuals, and the hauntingly melodic pieces by Yuki Kajiura convey an atmosphere of dread that permeates most of the film. It is truly an ominous, even exhausting piece of work, one not meant for the eyes of the unfamiliar.

This film is newcomer-repellant, as it goes so out of its way to not clue you in on anything. It even skips the first major battle, the moment of our main character summoning her servant, him and Rin meeting, and everything around this time frame, condensing them all into a montage monitored by Zouken, our disgusting antagonist. This is not the holy grail war you remember, but you must certainly remember in order to grasp this film. It could have been more lenient, as the meager two-hour runtime is already blitzed as is in some cases. Then again, this film is so bloated that it feels like it’s ending 5 times in the span of a half hour. Thankfully, aside from the core cast, certain side-characters aren’t let in the dust, mainly Shinji, who is thankfully far more emotionally complicated about his relationship with Shirou than in previous installments. He is far more complicated a person, mixing feelings of resentment, bewilderment, and attachment to Shirou, as he hardly understands him. How he managed to be far more interestingly written than everyone else here is beyond me.

To add on to the knowledge required to understand even an iota of this installment, the Grail War and most of its players are barely established before they start dropping like flies thanks to the central, ominous shadow that stalks them. It is as punishing as it is disturbing. Punishment can also be felt in the runtime. Even with two hours causing apparently vital information and other important early moments to get cut out, the film feels longer than The Dark Knight Rises. Perhaps it is due to the pacing feeling truly out of whack in the 20-minute mark and towards the end, as it feels almost meandering, like it doesn’t exactly know how to end so it keeps on trudging along.

Presage Flower is also adept at leaving the viewer with questions, for better or worse. Even outside of how its newcomer-repellant status, the fact that it deviates so far from grail wars of yore with chaotic, more disturbing elements, is as enticing as it is disturbing. It leaves the viewer unsure about exactly what is going on. It’s a terrifying mystery hiding in plain sight, much like a horror film’s supernatural antagonist. It is bone-chilling set-up for the next two installments. However, there are some notable questions that may not be answered, probably due to the cutting that needed to be made for a 2-hour long piece of cinema. Questions such as "How does Shirou get some of the visions he has, namely the one with Illya notifying him of them effectively being brother and sister?" are the more unintentional questions you'll find yourself asking. Though, questions such as "What is this new threat that corrupts this grail war and its combatants?" and "What is this new assassin?" are where the mystery comes in. It certainly makes the film more conflicting to evaluate, as one needs to truly collect their thoughts and ask those who read the material for clarification of what was cut and what is actually part of the mystery. Though, there is some well-done foreshadowing regarding its main heroine. In many ways, it's like the recently --and undeservedly panned-- Fate/Extra: Last Encore.

The appeal is in the dread, the torment from the unknown, for better or worse. Just make sure your endurance levels are high. Aimer's wonderful ending song shall be your reward, as confusion and dread consume the sky and the petals of death begin to fall.
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DorkAssJC
90/100
A Solid start to the Heaven's Feel Film Trilogy
The Heaven's Feel movies are super controversial among fans of the original VN, due in large part to being an adaptation of a 30+ hours visual novel story line into a 6 hour film series. For that reason, as a big fan of the VN myself, i went into this one with trepidation as to how much i would enjoy this one. Thankfully right out the gate Presage Flower is an excellent and beautiful feature and a strong start to the HF adaptation.
As is always the case with Ufotable adaptations, the film is shockingly beautiful first and foremost. the studio is supremely excellent in how it handles its various visual aspects and HF is no exception, and perhaps is there best outing to date. Particularly thanks to the gorgeous way in which the film's decided to portray winter in the setting, with light snowfall beautifully punctuating the film's climax. Visuals and direction overall are extremity stellar.
Story wise the adaptation is extremely efficient given its run time. Its starts out with a wonderful rendition of the scenes of Sakura and Shirou meeting each other and becoming close in the events leading up to the start of the story before smartly jumping over some of the early events of the story - as if your watching these films, you wouldve seen all this at least twice already. Going from their its extremely good at moving through the events of the novels in a way that allows sufficient enough breathing room and enough downtime to allow everything to hit properly. Only complaint i might have in this regard is Kotomine telling Shirou about Kiritsugu being trimmed down a bit (which mightve been trimmed down as a slot of people mightve already watched Zero which adds some interesting debates to how the animes are meant to be consumed) and Saber who couldve used more screen time, but alternatively this route in the VN and even as constructed in the film is and always was intended to be consumed after two other routes which give her more screen time so it chooses to rely on that rather than dedicate more screentime to her. Bit of a shame as a massive Saber fan but from a structural perspective i cant fault it too much.
The film also adds some lovely anime original scenes that enhance the story in their own way. Sakura waiting out in the snow for Shirou at the end was sad and adds a bit of foreshadowing (at least thats how i read it), the redone intro to Hassan killing Caster and her master is excellent, and the intro to Saber Alter in the end is haunting as adds a bit to the what that version of Artoria is meant to represent. The film not only adapts what scenes it does bring over fairly well but its new additions at least make checking it out more worthwhile to fans of the VN.
Not much left to say without jumping into the sequels, so ill finish off by saying Presage Flower is a good start to the Film trilogy and as a fan of the VN im very pleased.
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MechaDragonX
100/100
Beauty in Abhorrence: A "Presage" for the Coming Calamity
Intro
After spending a couple years slowly and kind slogging through the Fate route to get the through the story of the Fate/stay night (2004) visual novel without missing a lot, I became so invested that even if I only considered that route to be a 7.5, I had bought the game on Switch, and while I'm more interested in playing other things and haven't continued to the other routes in the visual novel, I've gone forward with the https://anilist.co/anime/19603/Fatestay-night-Unlimited-Blade-Works/ TV anime (I gave it a 9) and now am starting the Heaven's Feel film trilogy. I'm working on a larger review of both seasons of Unlimited Blade Works, but I was so moved by this first film, that I wrote up an essay and am now publishing it lol.
I don't recommend reading this review if you have not at least experienced the Unlimited Blade Works story, even if there are only minor spoilers.

A Singular Problem
I will start with my only issue with the film. There was no need for Illya threaten Saber with rape on top of taking her head. It was completely uncalled for not because it was out of place entirely for such comments with this darker storyline, but because Illya despite her age appears to be a young age due to her nature. Having her say such things really is in bad taste and makes the series seem more pedophiliac than it really is.

A Masterful Work of Film
I did not expect the film to start with explaining how Shirou and Sakura’s relationship came to be how it is now. Every route of the visual novel starts the same way, so starting with such things was frankly a really nice change of pace, and also worked really well for developing Sakura’s character and Shirou’s character specific to this storyline. As the film started to reach retreading ground, I really enjoyed how it played around with the fact audiences were supposed to already know what was unfolding in front of them. From the credits sequence representing Shirou’s comatose and dazed state when killed by Lancer, to the editing, framing, and focus of the visuals being different from how it was in the visual novel and previous adaptations. That latter element was particularly amazing to me. Even more so than the previous adaptation, the writing and even editing leans into the fact the audience knows more than the main characters do. Where I think many of these sorts of things could be explained away as references to Zero, what was here were very clearly callbacks to the events of what are fundamentally different ways the events could have played out.

On that note, the cinematography and editing was absolutely phenomenal. I think this was already the case with Unlimited Blade Works, but by focusing on characters that are not even in the conversation, and expressing elements that were not present in the original visual novel at this early point in the story, these seemingly unconventional choices in visual presentation really draw attention to themselves. It is obvious this film would not be very enjoyable to someone that is not familiar with the previous routes. Let alone since this is objectively a bit of retread, but I truly believe that the film shines at reinventing the existing material, animated and not, in a unique and remarkably cinematic manner. One particularly good change in the beginning that I wouldn’t say is anywhere near as cinematic or unconventional, is the greater focus put on Shinji as well.

Strength in Character-Driven Narrative
It is no secret how much I enjoyed the stories of the previous routes, especially Unlimited Blade Works, but not only do I think this route did a great job of building everything from before (which I’ll get to), but this is the sort of story I enjoy more and I personally can root for Shirou’s motivations here more than in the previous routes.

This route is shaping up to be the story of the Matou family, from the hardworking and tormented younger sister Sakura, to the jealous and insecure elder brother Shinji, and to the detestably perverse grandpa Zouken, but thus far information on Zouken has not been made available. Bits of pieces of Shinji have been previously shown in the other routes, as he was a decently important mage in the War, but little of Sakura was shown. She simply felt like the epitome of the housewife fantasy. However, now that that she is given this backstory and concrete evidence for the troubles she faces, in particular at the literal hands of her bastard of a brother, this is long the case. With more time spent on how Sakura constantly helped Shirou when he was injured the previous year, the motivations behind their actions, and the elements of their changing relationship from then to now, it makes their relationship a lot more understandable, charming, and worth rooting for. Naturally, this makes the rage Shirou feels against Shinji, and the the shifting of the narrative towards all this to be not only believable, it makes me seeth with rage as if I already didn’t hate his guts before. The story masterfully made a character that once felt like a male fantasy due to the way she acted, as a someone you actually want to protect so she can continue being that way for herself and her dear upperclassman.

What is to Come
There were many massive changes in this route from the previous ones. From Kotomine and Saber explaining their relationships to Kiritsugu, presenting conflicting takes on Shirou’s hero and the nature of his natural enemy (as a side note, I absolutely loved how this was not revealed until Saber talked to him about it, and it cut back and forth between Kotomine’s account and Saber’s), to Kotomine inviting Shirou to lunch and revealing he is a Master in the War. Not to mention the entire involvement of Zouken, introducing a True Assassin, and swiftly dealing with Caster and Souichirou, who were such thorns in the protagonists’ sides previously. Or even, Saber needing to confront the evil within her own heart. This is shaping up to be the best character drama, the best romance, and a better Saber story than the Fate route.
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