I bought this DVD purely on the spur of the moment, having not heard anything about it. Having sat down to watch it, it's certainly an intriguing and surreal film, which is worth a viewing, if you fancy something out of the ordinary.The story, is essentially a fantastical retelling of the Pinocchio fable. A boy robot is desperate to become human, but has to join a group of aliens, humans and other robots to rescue the soul of the robot boy's mother, whilst trying to outwit a second band of aliens who are prepared to do anything to stop him from his goal.This is not your usual type of anime. In fact, it's almost pseudo-anime: the vast majority of artwork is undertaken by a Korean animation team, and is quite dissimilar to regular anime art. There are still characters with large, friendly eyes, but the backgrounds aren't as detailed as in some recent works like "Akira", "Ghost In The Shell" and "Perfect Blue". Having said that, the film is well animated, and the use of CGI is limited but credible, rather than overpowering.But, with that all said and done, this is a movie that is aimed at people with a good attention span, and an audience willing to give the film the time it needs to breathe. The story is leisurely-paced for sure, but if you let it lead you down its path, you should grow to like it.As you watch the film, you will notice many nods to other works and artists, including "Akira", Rin Taro, "Metropolis" (the anime), Osamu Tezuka and many, many more. Don't let this put you off, because whilst this could be seen as Nakamura being unoriginal, the combination of recognisable works actually helps the film, rather than hinders it.The UK DVD release from ADV Films is superb, with both an English-dubbed and English-subtitled version, both in 2.00:1 Anamorphic Widescreen. Occasionally, the subtitles can go a little too fast, or get a tad confusing, but on the whole, it is a great effort. If you are willing to devote the time to this film, and don't come expecting lots of big action set-pieces, then you may be pleasurably surprised.One word of caution though: although predominantly a film suitable for children, there are some scenes of bloody violence that may not be appropriate, or deemed a little too dark and mature in tone for them to cope with.

The animation was good, the imagery was good, although not totally original, however, the story was too long, way too confusing, and over the top dramatic. After about an hour I couldn't wait to get it over with. With so many characters that have nothing to contribute and plot elements that either come from nowhere or go nowhere this movie really wasn't one movie at all and would have been better of as a short series or possibly two movies. If you like this kind of typical story maybe you will like it, but frankly, I've been spoiled by much more creative stories that actually have some sort message to tell. Go rent a Miyazaki film and watch it twice, you'll get way more out of it.

The teasers for Tree of Palme try to pass it off as a sort of allegory for a fairy tale with actual meaning, then immediately start raving about the animation. I should have known what that meant.The main character, Palme, is a good example of the whole movie's problem. One minute, Palme is a humble hero in search of himself, the next a violent psycho with an unhealthy fixation on a girl he once took care of.Like all of the characters in the movie, Palme is poorly defined. You do not bond with the characters at all, although Shatta has acquired a couple of fan girls. It seems that the writer was more interested in cramming all the drama and complexity he could into this movie than actually exploring his characters' motivations and personalities.New, useless story lines were being introduced in the last fifteen minutes of the movie. The writer seriously needed to streamline his story. Perhaps he was trying to be epic, but it was simply too much information for a two-hour movie. However I can't help but wonder if a plot with so many dimensions and characters would have been better suited for a TV series or graphic novel.In the last five minutes of the movie, I simply could not endure the sheer lack of quality any longer and began laughing at how contrived the characters, the relationships, and the whole plot was. I touched my companion and he started cracking up too, as did a young man seated behind us. We tried so hard to control ourselves, but we simply could not take the terrible quality of this movie.On the bright side, the animation is incredible and viewers will find themselves admiring the lush backgrounds and charming character designs. The animation almost guides you; when you don't care about the characters, it tells you how to feel.

At the base of a huge tree lives a botanist with his malfunctioning wooden robot named Palme. One day a wounded female warrior arrives there just ahead of her pursuers. She makes Palme to deliver a capsule to Tamas, a world deep underground.This movie is not all about the animation, but based heavily more on the morale and symbolism, it wants to explore the meaning of humanity. About how Palme encounters various people, less mechanical but some are more "soulless", how he wanted to become a human to protect the girl he loves, Popo. Even sometimes we can see that Palme is "more human" than any others (makes mistakes like human too).So, if you want to watch an alternate version of pinocchio movie, watch this , its a good movie.