Prologue - Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Many interesting movies have been released for these past years.  Each of those movies that had been labelled as "Simply amazing!" has its own distinctive feature, a feature that would cause a great impact being acted upon the minds of audience.  This would mean the story has been successfully delivered and would be long remembered in the film industry.

And so, for this post, I want to write about this particular 'one of a kind' movie.  A very epic one that had made me watch it ten times fold.  This CGI-animated movie developed by Visual Works and Square Enix is named as "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children".

This remarkable movie was directed by Tetsuya Nomura and Takeshi Nozue.  The writer of this brilliant story is Kazushige Nojima.  'Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children' was produced by Yoshinori Kitase and Shinji Hashimoto, and it was released on 14th September 2005.  The movie received a big hit in Japan, and later achieved an award from America Anime Award in 2007.

The story of the movie was based on its original game called "Final Fantasy VII" made by the same Japanese company, Square Enix.  The movie took place two years after the events of the original game and focuses on the appearance of a trio, the Remnants of Sephiroth, that kidnaps children infected with an unknown disease.

Cloud (left) and Sephiroth (right)

Before we get to know the Remnants of Sephiroth, allow me to introduce you the main character, Cloud Strife.  Cloud Strife, the main protagonist is a blond spiked hair male with blue eyes that glow due to the 'Mako' flowing through his body.  Mako is a spiritual power-infused energy from 'Lifestream', but prolonged exposure may lead it to be similar to radioactive materials that could cause genetic mutation, poisoning and ultimately, death.  Cloud is often associated to be an 'Ex-SOLDIER'.  A 'SOLDIER' is an elite commander in combat under the 'Shinra Electric Company'.

The Remnants of Sephiroth are entities emerged from a character named Sephiroth.  From the game, Sephiroth was a first-class SOLDIER of Shinra Company.  But after he found out his birth was a result of an experiment by the mega corporation Shinra, in which they injected him with cells from the extraterrestrial life-form named Jenova when he was still a fetus, he turned sides and sworn for vengeance.  Most of the Final Fantasy VII fans would refer Sephiroth as the 'One-Winged Angel', a super-soldier with a single black wing on his back.  He, who no longer have any emotions of love and beloved, where the act of kindness looked pointless to him and the only feelings he had been familiar with were of hatred, despair and a world of eternal darkness.  In the game, Sephiroth was defeated in a fight against Cloud Strife and was seen dissolved into the Lifestream, seemingly destroyed.  But in this movie, it was then showed that Sephiroth still had some will power left that had allowed himself to "live" as his three remnants instead of being pulled into the Lifestream completely.  Sephiroth's dark power contaminated the Lifestream.  As a result, an unknown disease spread and infected people who came in contact with the tainted Lifestream.  The infected people are mostly homeless and orphaned children.

Remnants of Sephiroth : Yazoo (left), Kadaj, Loz (right)

The Remnants of Sephiroth (also known as the Silver Haired Men) are a trio of young men that served as the primary antagonists of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.  They were born from Sephiroth's power and embodied different traits of him.  Kadaj was Sephiroth's cruelty and insanity.  Loz was Sephiroth's strength and agility.  And Yazoo depicted Sephiroth's allure and cool demeanor. Together, they could become Sephiroth as whole.  The remnants were each a fragment of his will that served a purpose to enable Sephiroth's physical resurrection into the world.


Come and watch, let yourself be immersed in a world of enchantment and fantasy!