About the Film: I followed Advent Children closely from the first time it was announced some time in 2004. I am a die-hard Final Fantasy fan, and although I would have preferred the sequel to one of the greatest games of all time (Final Fantasy VII) to be, well, a game, I was delighted to see the story continued in a medium with slightly more widespread appeal. Although the writers made an effort to allow this movie to stand on its own, people who have played the game (and remember the plot and characters) will certainly get considerably more out of it.
About This Release: In production since about 2006, this version of the film, subtitled "Complete" is the Japanese equivalent of a director's cut. In addition to a new high-definition transfer of the film several scenes have been extended or reworked and new scenes have been added to further round out the story and provide more visual flash. It may not seem like much while watching it, but in total the film has been extended by fully a third taking it from 90 minutes to 2 hours running time.
Visuals: Although excellent, I have to say I was expecting more from the High-Definition release of this movie. My first misgiving is with the inconsistent visual quality. The newly added scenes are generally presented with the kind of sharp visual detail that HD enthsiasts have come to expect. The older scenes, while clearly providing more detail than the DVD release, are missing the clarity that true HD material is capable of, often appearing fuzzy or out of focus. It is not generally noticeable, but it does become an obvious annoyance in a couple of scenes. Arguably this could have been done on purpose, adding a "fuzzy" filter for ambiance, but I doubt they would have intentionally added upscaling artifacts which are present in this film. The most notable instance I can recall is during Tifa's scenes, particularly in the church; the aliasing on her hair is more reminiscent of a DVD being upscaled to 1080p than of a new render done in 1080p. Little touches have been added to further "sell" the quasi-realism that this film is striving to achieve. During battles characters' faces get dirty, during one scene flecks of dust in the air created little shimmers.
Story: While the same story is being told, the added/extended scenes and to an extent the visual enhancements do add a different slant on the plot of Advent Children. While the main points of the story remain unchanged, the plot is made clearer and certain elements which seemed random or unimportant take on new meaning. [Spoiler alert!] For example, during a scene a girl carrying a stuffed moogle comes up to Denzel and holds out her hand for him to follow. In the original DVD release, this is really all we see of her, but in the "Complete" release we get to see an earlier scene that reveals she is really trying to make an apology to Denzel for being rude before. Denzel plays a much more prominent role in this version. It was never clear to me what it was that Cloud was so busy doing before I saw this release, but in this version it is revealed that he was out looking for a cure to the Geostigma so he could help Denzel. In the DVD release, the Geostigma seemed like little more than a charcoal colored rash that slowly killed people. In this version it is much more sinister, causing sores that ooze sticky black sludge and induces violent convulsions and vomiting of the same black sludge. I'll leave the spoilers at that, but I've only revealed a couple of the dozen or so plot augmentations that this version of the film brings to the table. Most of them gave me that "Ooooh that's what they meant. I get it now." feeling. Maybe I'm just slow, but a lot of these things weren't obvious to me in the film's original presentation.
Sound: This film really benefits from the expanded HD audio - more so if you have the equipment to properly decode the newer HD audio formats, but even when down sampled to Dolby Digital, the sound is richer and has much fewer compression artifacts. Some of the music has been remixed slightly and it seems like I heard one or two additional compositions. Many of the songs were written to lock in with certain scenes, and when the scenes were extended, so was the music. I was very impressed with how seamless it all seemed. Voice acting is one of those things, like pizza toppings, that nobody seems to be able to agree on. I have never been terribly picky about voice acting, but since everyone is different I'll attempt to provide some frame of reference for my opinion. My idea of poor voice acting is the Devil May Cry anime, and my idea of good voice acting is Cowboy Bebop. I think the voice acting is superb in Advent Children. I was particularly delighted to hear the voices chosen for the ancillary characters like Barret, Cait Sith, Red XIII, Yufie, Vincent and Cid. But the actors chosen for main characters Cloud, and Tifa were very good matches for what I imagined the characters from the game would sound.
Extras: This review is of the Japanese release, and frankly I did not really care enough about the extras to check them out. I watched them once when the DVD release came out and can't be bothered to do it again. This does come with an additional animated "episode" about Denzel. For those of you who want to know absolutely everything there is to know about how a movie was made, you will not be disappointed with the depth. For me the real attraction in the extras was the inclusion of the Final Fantasy XIII playable demo. Since the PS3 is region free, the Japanese release is very import friendly. (If you don't mind that it is all in Japanese) The U.S. release mentions a Final Fantasy XIII "preview". I don't know if that means that it will be a demo, or an extended trailer. It would be a shame if it was the latter.
Final Thoughts: I wish all "director's cut" releases could enhance the original presentation as well as Advent Children Complete does. The extra footage catapulted this already great movie firmly into the category of awesome. If you didn't enjoy the first release because you just didn't "get it" then this release may be just what you need to put the pieces together as many of the more vague areas of the plot are clarified. If you loved the first one, then you'll love this one even more. About the only thing it is missing is the ability to watch the original release version of the film. Personally that isn't an issue for me but it would have been a nice addition.