Big-budget period dramas, often set a millennium or more ago and based on a famous legend or historical incident, are the coin of the Asian coproduction realm.
Major regional players put money in these films because they represent sure bets; everybody in the target territories knows the characters and story. But once the serious money comes in, or national pride is as stake, the fun usually goes out and grandiosity sets in, even if the source material is the stuff of kiddy cartoons.
"Dororo," acclaimed indie filmmaker Akihito Shiota's first venture into the period-fantasy genre, may have serious money behind it, from the TBS network among others, but it is not another solemn-faced epic. It is deep enough in some of its themes, including the meaning of what it is to be human in an age of human engineering, but it also deserves adjectives that used to be rolled out for old Errol Flynn movies: dashing, swashbuckling, rollicking.