Currently in theaters nationwide and in Canada, Yu-Gi-Oh! THE DARK SIDE OF DIMENSIONS, a new feature film in the ongoing part of the adventure fantasy/science fiction Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, anime, and video game franchise, features original music from several composers, including two composers from the original series, Elik Álvarez and Freddy Sheinfeld.
Álvarez and Sheinfeld are frequent collaborators. Both composers have worked on the Yu-Gi-Oh! television series and have worked on several David Attenborough documentaries including CONQUEST OF THE SKIES 3D, MICRO MONSTERS 3D, GALAPAGOS 3D and GREAT BARRIER REEF WITH DAVID ATTENBOROUGH. Together with composer Joel Douek, Álvarez and Sheinfeld’s score for KINGDOM OF PLANTS 3D was named Best Documentary Score award at the International Film Music Festival and was nominated Best Original Score for a Documentary Feature by the International Film Music Critic Association.
“Before we started the scoring process we discussed in detail how the directors wanted the movie to sound like,” said Sheinfeld. “We have been involved with the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise since the first movie which was released back in 2004. The main themes we carried from the TV series were the Yu-Gi-Oh! transformation, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and the friendship themes. We haven’t used those themes for a while, so it was a lot of fun to use them again, but with a more modern and cinematic approach.”
“We wanted the audience connecting again to those themes and at the same time we needed to adapt them to the tone of the movie and the style of the score,” Álvarez added. “Many times we also found ourselves deconstructing those themes and including them in our cues, sometimes they were very obvious, sometime they were ‘hidden’ somewhere within the orchestration.”
A decade in the making, Yu-Gi-Oh! THE DARK SIDE OF DIMENSIONS is the fourth feature film in the franchise, and features new designs and an all-new story from the original creator of the global phenomenon, Kazuki Takahashi. Veteran anime composer Yoshihiro Ike also contributed to the film’s music; Michael Brady, who composed themes for the 2011 series YU-GI-OH! ZEXAL served as music producer and music editor for the new film.
The film was released in Japan on April 23, 2016[2] and was released on January 27, 2017 in the United States and Canada.
