Night's Reign

Night's Reign (夜の支配 Yoru no Shihai) is a 2006 dark fantasy anime film produced by J.C.Staff and LIVE Entertainment. It was directed by Takashi Watanabe from a screenplay by Dai Sato and Sadayuki Murai, with Seiji Kikuchi, Kosuke Kawamura and Mai Otsuka designing the characters, Ikuko Itoh serving as the animation director and Yoshihisa Hirano composing the score. The film is set in an alternate reality version of Japan where during the night, a night guard defends the city of Fukuoka from a group of humanoid monsters known only as "The Dark Ones". When a villainous leader of this group plots to overthrow the balance between good and evil and unleash a war on Earth, a teen named Kazuki Nakanishi, who's father works for the guard, becomes the one standing between the city's survival and ultimate destruction.

A joint Japanese-American co-production, the film was released in Japan by Toei Company on November 11, 2005 and in the United States by Samuel Goldwyn Films and Roadside Attractions on February 16, 2007. The English version features the voices of Haley Joel Osment, John Hurt, Vanessa Hudgens, Eddie Izzard, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Will Arnett and Alan Rickman. The film received generally favorable reviews from critics.

Plot
Coming soon!

Additional voices

 * Steve Blum
 * Dave Mallow
 * Robbie Rist
 * Mona Marshall
 * Melissa Fahn
 * Ben Bishop
 * Cindy Robinson
 * Richard Cansino
 * Charlie Adler
 * Jess Harnell
 * Michelle Ruff
 * Mary Elizabeth McGlynn
 * Grant George
 * Barbara Goodson
 * Michael Sorich
 * Brian Donovan
 * Terrence Stone
 * Debi Derryberry
 * Debi Mae West
 * Lex Lang

Production
The idea for the film came when writer Sadayuki Murai read the 1998 Russian novel Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko and became interested in the idea of creating a film with similar concepts as the novel. He pitched his idea to Takashi Watanabe, who he worked together with on the anime series Boogiepop Phantom, and the idea was taken to animation studio J.C.Staff. The company considered doing an adaptation of Night Watch, but they ultimately could not get the film rights due to legal issues with Channel One Russia, who was producing the 2004 film adaptation of the novel and it's follow-up Day Watch. The company was able to proceed with the new film, then called Edge of the Shadow (影の果て), after Murai assured Channel One Russia that his film would follow a much different plotline compared to the novel. Around the same time, producer Garrett Fredrickson was working with J.C.Staff on his project The Forbidden Man; during the discussion about it, he heard about the new film and wanted to not only get involved with English localization, but in production and possible theatrical release in America.

The project began production in 2003. Ikuko Itoh served as the animation director while Seiichi Morishita served as the cinematographer. While the animation and music were done entirely in Japan, much of the post-production work was handeled in Los Angeles by Garrett Fredrickson's production company, LIVE Entertainment, with the aid of Twentieth Century Fox Studios and Studiopolis. Fellow LIVE employees Eric Larson and Ross Griffith also served as line producers for the production. The English dialogue was recorded alongside the Japanese dialogue, with the English screenplay being written by Cindy Davis Hewitt and Donald H. Hewitt; it was the first time the duo had worked with Garrett Fredrickson since A Penguin's Memories in 1987. The film's title would be changed from Edge of the Shadow to Night's Reign due to the production team feeling that it fit the film better.

Theatrical
Night's Reign was released in Japan by Toei Company on November 11, 2006. The film was released in the United States by Samuel Goldwyn Films and Roadside Attractions on February 16, 2007; the two companies acquired the distribution rights for the States after Paramount Pictures, who had forged a home video partnership with LIVE Licensing in 2005 and were due to release theatrical films LIVE picked up, passed on the film due to them being unsure on how to market it. The film was released in 530 theaters across America, which was at the time the widest release for any anime film in the United States until the release of Ponyo in 2009. During it's theatrical run, the film made back ¥800 million at the Japanese box office, $5 million at the American box office, and an additional $7 million from overseas markets for a worldwide total of $18.4 million.

A three-minute Japanese trailer was first shown in Japanese cinemas starting on June 12, 2006. It also aired on NTV on June 9, 2006. An English-language theatrical trailer was released in August 2006 and was shown at various American anime conventions and was also attached to the theatrical releases of The Last Kiss, Infamous, Man of the Year, Driving Lessons, Stranger than Fiction, Idiocracy, The Prestige, Deja Vu and Flushed Away.

Home media
On June 12, 2007, Night's Reign was released on DVD in the United States by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, who secured the home video rights via a separate agreement with Samuel Goldwyn Films and Roadside Attractions. Bonus features on the DVD release include an audio commentary from Garrett Fredrickson, voice director Jamie Simone and screenwriters Cindy Davis Hewitt and Donald Hewitt, a behind-the-scenes featurette, the options of English and Japanese audio tracks, and the film's trailer and TV spots.

In Japan, the film was released on DVD by Toei Video on July 18, 2007 with both English and Japanese audio options.

Reception
Night's Reign received generally favorable reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a score of 65% based on 134 reviews with an average rating of 6.5 out of 10. On Metacritic, the film received a score of 62 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Stephen Holden of The New York Times praised the film, saying that it was "An overall fun and enthralling animated fantasy adventure film." The Los Angeles Times said that "Watanabe's knack for animation shines throughout this feature. Dazzling, emotional and action-packed, the film will appeal to fans of anime and maybe even non-fans alike."