Good choreography, brilliant watercolor backgrounds, shadowed by a not so original storu and a bit crumpy storytelling especially if you can't distinguish chinese from japanese

Sword of the Stranger is a real visual treat. The high-octane fight scenes are lavishly animated and exude a visceral sense of speed. In terms of story it does nothing you won't have seen before, but has the definite virtue of not trying to do too much. The film is expertly paced, never once dragging or out-staying it's welcome, the characters are believable and more importantly likeable and the end result is an enjoyable anime feature that remains highly entertaining from start to finish.

I really don't care how cliche it was because I was captivated the whole time. Good vs. evil is always a good show and this movie was a beautiful example of that (well except for the gore). The animated action was amazing, and with a tale of redemption thrown in, the movie was simply epic. Also, that was probably the best sword fight ever!

This movie could have done so much better.. It had some amazing fighting scenes, but the story was very boring. I always hate it when they introduce the 'retired superkiller', they really bypass any character development that way. A must watch if you're an anime lover like me, just for the action and art.

rated from memory

While there's nothing really unique about this film I found it to be an enjoyable anime.The action in this film is the highlight.The sword fights are well done and fun to see.The end fight between No-Name and Blonde Guy was very cool.The character development between Kotaro and No-Name was good.There backstory's are fleshed out enough to give a sense of who they are.However I would have liked to know more about No-Name.

This has some of the best fight scenes I've ever seen animated, looks sleek, and had a passable English dub. Cookie-cutter characters didn't keep me from enjoying this action packed movie.

Great fighting sequences and overall animation.

Well excecuted tale of kenshin-like sumarai redemption. Great action animation as always by bones. Story still lacks originality and therewith it's impact is limited to your own familiarity with the genre. Style is original however. Characters could have had a little more depth.

Decent, but rather forgettable.

I love this one.I´ve seen it twice what can I say the Blood & Honor feeling especially at the final 10 minutes is great...between good & evil exists more than only killing the opponent !

They spent so much money on the lavishly-animated action sequences that they apparently only had enough yen left over for one god damned track of music--and they're going to make damn sure you hear that same track of music in almost every single scene. This is a total genre-picture and doesn't try to be anything else, so in that sense, it's an okay way to kill some time. Still, I wish they'd have done something at least a little more unique with it.

Pretty cliche, pretty forgettable, yet, still, pretty good. There's not much to say about it other than "lol blood."

Definitely has good animation, sound and action. But everything else becomes so annoying that it detracts from the film. The writing is sloppy, lazy and poor, the plot mediocre, and the characters bland, boring and cliche. At one point, the antagonist, bored, points to a random stranger who happens to coincidentally be the protagonist and says "Let's fight". Stupid movie. At least the action keeps it afloat.

Elements of this are excellent: the animation (particularly the backgrounds) is gorgeous, the story is simple, and the film is permeated with startlingly graphic violence. But it's crippled by having one main character that's nothing but cliche and another who's completely unappealing even when he isn't screamingly annoying.

Predictable and entirely unoriginal.

what naikou said