Run Melos!

About Run Melos!

If you are hunting for a new action series, Run Melos! (Hashire Melos (Movie)) deserves a look (1992). The setup goes like this. The premise: Melos is a good boy from Messina and has come to Syracuse, the magnificent metropolis of temples, to buy a ritual sword for his sister's marriage ceremony. He meets a very talented sculptor and they become allies.

As things develop, later, the King's guards arrest Melos while he was having a walk in the castle's gardens and Syracuse's King, obsessed by the idea of assassins out to kill him, sentences him to death. Melos is desperate, but most of all he wants to be present at his sister's marriage, so he asks the King for three days to go to Messina for the celebration and then return to Syracuse where he will accept the death penalty. The King does not trust Melos, but, trying to demonstrate that nobody could trust him, asks him to find a volunteer substitute in case he breaks his promise.

In an action series like this, fight choreography, pacing and sound design carry much of the weight. If you count yourself among viewers who like fast, high-impact fights, put it on your list.

Production & Appeal

Visual 80 is the studio behind Run Melos!, and its direction shapes everything from character design to motion. Because it leans on action, fight choreography, pacing and sound design carry much of the weight. With a 6.9/10 score, it is more of a niche pick than a universal crowd-pleaser. Released in 1992, it competed with that season's other new series for attention.