General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Dororo (どろろ) (2007 film)

Dororo (どろろ) is a 2007 Japanese live-action dark fantasy action film directed by Akihiko Shiota, adapted from the 1960s manga of the same name by Osamu Tezuka. It stars Satoshi Tsumabuki as the warrior Hyakkimaru and Ko Shibasaki as the thief Dororo, who travel together defeating the 48 demons that hold pieces of Hyakkimaru's body.¹ Produced with backing from the TBS network and distributed by Toho, it was one of the highest-grossing Japanese films of 2007.²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Japanese release	January 27, 2007, distributed by Toho; 138 minutes; rated PG-12¹^•⁴
Director / screenwriters	Akihiko Shiota; screenplay by Masa Nakamura and Shiota, from Tezuka's original story¹
Leads	Satoshi Tsumabuki as Hyakkimaru; Ko Shibasaki as Dororo; Kiichi Nakai as Daigo Kagemitsu¹^•⁴
Budget	Over two billion yen (about $16.5 million)¹^•⁵
Japanese box office	¥3.45 billion, the 8th highest-grossing Japanese film of 2007³
Filming location	New Zealand, standing in for a semi-legendary Japan²
Action director	Ching Siu-Tung, the Hong Kong choreographer of Hero and House of Flying Daggers¹^•⁶

Spoilers

Story

The film is set in a mystical, war-torn era rather than the civil-war period of the original manga, a change the producers described as making the story universal.¹ The military chieftain Daigo Kagemitsu borrows strength from 48 demons to unify the land and promises them his unborn son. The baby is born deprived of 48 body parts, including limbs, an eye, a nose, and a mouth, and Kagemitsu abandons him.¹

Twenty years later the son, Hyakkimaru, fights demons with swords embedded in his arms, learning that each demon he destroys returns one of the body parts it took. He is joined by Dororo, a thief who first follows him hoping to claim the demon sword hidden in his left arm.¹ The two grow into trusted companions as they cut down the demons, but Hyakkimaru's birth secret casts a shadow over them, and the story ends with the pair confronting Kagemitsu, who is also Dororo's foe.⁷^•⁸

Adaptation from the manga

The film takes visible liberties with Tezuka's source. In the original manga and its 1969 television anime, Dororo is a small child; in the film she was made the same age as Hyakkimaru to create romantic chemistry between the leads.² The setting was also moved from Japan's warring-states period to a mystical world, and the ending departs significantly from the comic.¹^•⁹ Japanese promotional material billed the project as the revival of a Tezuka masterpiece once called impossible to film, forty years after the manga's publication.¹⁰

Production

Crew and effects. Shiota, previously known for Yomigaeri (Resurrection) and Canary, made his first venture into the period-fantasy genre with the film.¹^•¹¹ Action direction was by Ching Siu-Tung, whose choreography mixes swordplay, monster fighting, and wirework; reviewers noted that the film relies on practical effects, animatronics, and stunt fighting as much as on computer-generated imagery.⁶ Costume design was by Kazuko Kurosawa.¹ Like The Lord of the Rings, the film was shot on location in New Zealand, which stands in for a semi-legendary Japan.²

The monster designs mix registers. Some creatures are deliberately retro, such as a huge sticky-tongued komodo dragon fought in a sequence whose yellow film-stock look and jerky editing pay jokey homage to the tokusatsu genre of low-budget superhero television; Lord Daigo's distant castle looks as if Hayao Miyazaki might have drawn it.² The film's roster of creatures includes giant lizards, tree monsters, spider crab demons, flying vulture men, spirit babies, and mutant dogs.⁶

Reception and box office

Commercial performance. Released on January 27, 2007, the film opened at the top of the Japanese box office, beating The Pursuit of Happyness on the opening weekend and holding the number-one spot for four consecutive weeks.⁵ By late February it had grossed $20.5 million (¥2.48 billion) on two million admissions, making it the most successful Japanese release of 2007 to that date; by May, Screen International reported just over $27 million from a seven-week run in the top ten.⁵^•² The Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (Eiren) ranked it 8th among Japanese films for the full year at ¥3.45 billion.³

International sales. Universal Pictures bought North American rights in January 2007, and producer TBS sold the film in around 20 other territories, centered on Asia including South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.⁵^•²^•¹² Screen International predicted that subtitling and the culture gap would narrow the audience abroad, excluding many of the under-14 viewers who contributed to the film's success at home.²

Critical response. The Japan Times critic Mark Schilling called the film dashing, swashbuckling, and rollicking rather than another solemn-faced epic, while noting its theme of what it means to be human in an age of human engineering.¹¹ Far East Films praised Shibasaki's tomboyish performance, the production design, and the crisp action, calling it one of the strong examples of manga-inspired Japanese fantasy cinema.⁶ On IMDb the film holds a 6.4/10 rating from about 3,100 users.¹³

Planned sequels

In February 2007 producer Takashi Hirano announced plans for two sequels, to be filmed back-to-back the following year in the manner of The Lord of the Rings, with a tentative 2009 release and a combined budget of $50 million (¥6 billion), far exceeding the first film's budget. The second film was to follow Dororo's sea-bound adventures, with possible South Pacific island locations.⁵ The sequels were never made; an academic account of Tezuka adaptations notes that the film ends unconcluded in the evident hope of a sequel that has not been realized.⁸

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026