Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light

Plot

5,000 years ago, the heroic Pharaoh Atem imprisoned Anubis, the Egyptian lord of the dead, after he tried to destroy the world by persuading the kings to play the mysterious Shadow Games.

In the present day, Anubis' tomb is uncovered by archaeologists, amazed by his strongest and most valuable treasure: the Pyramid of Light. At the same time, Yugi Muto assembles the Millennium Puzzle which contains Atem's soul, releasing dozens of monsters and turning Yugi into the heroic Pharaoh Atem (referred to by fans as Yami Yugi) who banishes the monsters back to the shadow realm. A devastating spiritual force is unleashed from the relic, liberating the Egyptian sorcerer. Anubis, now free, intends to conclude his plan.

3 years later, the Battle City Finals have recently concluded, and Yugi has achieved international fame by defeating his arch-rival Seto Kaiba and obtaining the 3 Egyptian God Cards: Slifer the Sky Dragon, Obelisk the Tormentor, and the Winged Dragon of Ra. Kaiba, determined to defeat Yugi once and for all, turns to Maximillion Pegasus, the creator of the Duel Monsters card game, to obtain any new cards designed to defeat the almighty God Cards. Pegasus tells Kaiba that he has a card he is looking for, but will only give it to Kaiba if he can beat him in a duel. Kaiba defeats Pegasus and claims 2 cards, one of which was secretly planted by Anubis.

Meanwhile, Yugi and Téa Gardner go to the local museum where Anubis' corpse and the Pyramid of Light are on display. They meet up with Yugi's grandfather, Solomon, who reads a foreboding prophecy:

The eye that sees what's yet to come

Its vision shall be fulfilled

Unless blinded by events predetermined

Thus light and shadows both be killed

It is then that the vengefully dark spirit of Anubis attacks the group, with Yugi having a vision of Anubis himself manipulating Kaiba and Yami Yugi being hurt in a Shadow Game. He awakens to find Anubis' body and the Pyramid of Light missing. Kaiba's younger brother Mokuba arrives, and Yugi is taken to Kaiba's Duel Dome with his friends Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor in pursuit. Kaiba forces Yami Yugi into a duel, unaware that Anubis is manipulating him into using one of the 2 new cards, Pyramid of Light, which covers the field in a huge replica of the actual pyramid and destroys the God Cards. Yugi, Joey, and Tristan are sucked into the pyramid while Mokuba flees the crumbling building.

Soundtrack

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie Soundtrack feature various vocal artists (most notably The Black Eyed Peas, who contributed the song "For the People") from the English version. It was released on August 10, 2004, on RCA on Audio CD and Compact Cassette. The score for the film was never released.

Production

In July 2003, it was announced that Warner Bros. Pictures had acquired the distribution rights outside Asia to a feature-length Yu-Gi-Oh! film, hoping to replicate the success of the first three Pokémon films. Unlike the earlier Pokémon films, which had been produced primarily for Japanese audiences, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie was developed in Japan specifically for an American theatrical premiere. Animation historian Fred Patten described the production as a departure from the traditional distribution model for Japanese animated films. The film was produced by 4Kids Entertainment in association with Shueisha, TV Tokyo and Nihon Ad Systems.

The animation was produced by Studio Gallop in Tokyo, with production assistance from South Korea's Dong Woo Animation. Hatsuki Tsuji directed the film and also served as character designer and chief animation director, while Hidekazu Shimamura was responsible for monster designs. The Japanese production credits identify Junki Takegami and Masahiro Hikokubo as screenwriters. The American Film Institute lists Matthew Drdek, Lloyd Goldfine, Norman J. Grossfeld and Michael Pecoriello as screenplay writers, with Takegami and Hikokubo credited for the story.

The Japanese-language version of the film is longer than the American release. The Japanese DVD has a listed running time of 101 minutes, compared with the 89-minute American theatrical version. The Japanese production credits identify Shinkichi Mitsumune as composer, while the American Film Institute credits Elik Alvarez, John Angier, Joel Douek, Ralph Schuckett, Wayne Sharpe, Freddy Sheinfeld and Gil Talmi for the music of the American release.

Promotion

To promote the film's American theatrical release, Warner Bros. Pictures distributed one of four exclusive Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game cards—"Pyramid of Light", "Sorcerer of Dark Magic", "Watapon", or "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon"—to cinema attendees with each admission, while supplies lasted. Warner Bros. announced plans to distribute 10 million promotional cards to cinemas beginning on August 13, 2004.

Novelization

A tie-in novelization for the film was released in 2004, written by Junki Takegami. The novel is divided into a prologue, 5 chapters, and an epilogue. It is virtually identical in terms of plot, save for a few minor changes, such as explaining that Akhenaden created the Pyramid of Light for his son Seto as a failed recreation of the Millennium Puzzle, and extra exposition, such as giving out detailed deck-lists for each character. The novel was never released and translated to English, and is now rare since it has gone out of print.

Release

Home media

The film was released on DVD and VHS on November 16, 2004.

The film debuted on the Blu-ray format in the United States for the first time on October 8, 2019.

A SteelBook Blu-ray edition was announced in May 2024 to mark the film's twentieth anniversary, with a scheduled release date of August 20, 2024.

Box office

Yu-Gi-Oh! – The Movie: Pyramid of Light opened at 2,411 screens across the U.S. and made a theater screen average of $3,934. By the end of the weekend, it made $9,485,494 and place #4 on the Box Office Top 10 behind Collateral, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, and Alien vs. Predator, which opened up on the same day and took the #1 position. It is currently the #3 Japanese animated film in the US Box Office, after Pokémon: The First Movie and Pokémon: The Movie 2000. The film grossed $19,765,868 in the United States and Canada, with only $29,170,410 worldwide, making it a box-office bomb compared to the success of the first three Pokémon films dubbed by the same company.

Critical reception

The film was panned by critics in America.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 6% of 66 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Don't watch the TV show or play the card game? Then this movie is not for you." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 15 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".

In a retrospective review for the Radio Times Guide to Films, film critic Lucy Barrick awarded the film two stars out of five, describing the narrative as "largely incomprehensible" and the animation as "bog-standard".

Theatrical re-releases

A digitally remastered version of the film received a limited theatrical re-release in the United States on March 11 and 12, 2018, presented by Fathom Events and 4K Media in nearly 800 cinemas. The screenings included a preview of the English-language premiere of Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS. The remastered film was also screened in approximately 30 cinemas across the United Kingdom on June 13, 2018, distributed by Manga Entertainment.