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Title: Vampire Hunter D
UK Distributor:
Manga Entertainment
BBFC Certificate: 15
Suggested Retail Price (SRP): £17.99
Running Time: 85 mins (approx.)
Audio Options: English 5.1 & 2.0
Subtitles: None
Reviewer: Rich (Webmaster)
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It sounds a great idea. In a post
apocalyptic future, society has reverted to an odd mix of feudal Europe and
frontier America with a healthy sheen of sci-fi technology and gothic imagery
for good measure. In a nameless town a young human woman is marked by an
ancient Vampire called Magnus Lee, who has decided to take her as his bride.
In a desperate attempt to avoid her fate she hires an enigmatic Vampire
Hunter known only as ‘D’ to kill Magnus and thus free her from her
plight. It has
design by the internationally renowned artist Yoshitaka Amano, and is based on a
popular series of Japanese novels.
Alarm bells should start ringing when you notice the heroine is called Doris.
Vampire Hunter D is typical of the anime that was being released in the
UK in the late eighties/early nineties, it is violent and gory with long action
scenes and some brief gratuitous nudity, and has a mean, moody, and mysterious
lead character. Despite this Vampire Hunter D does have a few
pluses over its peers.
Unlike many horror/action anime released in that period – such as Monster
City, Devilman or The Guyver – Vampire Hunter D has a
strong and well realised setting, a fairly straightforward plot and a good
villain. The setting is Vampire Hunter D’s strongest attribute,
successfully managing to add bits of high technology into what is effectively
the standard ‘Romanian town in the shadow of the old castle’ device so
frequently used in vampire stories. The setting also has some Wild West
aspects, particularly in the clothing worn by many of the townspeople and the
design of the town itself, and the heroine lives on a farm outside the town and
has to defend her livestock from marauders. In fact the whole story has a
very Wild West feel to it – the standard Western device of a young woman living
independently and hiring a horse riding drifter to defend her home and honour
from a powerful villain and his goons has just been transposed into a vampire
setting. There are some nice gothic touches too, particularly in the
design of Magnus’ castle; and Magnus himself is mostly pretty
sinister and makes a decent villain.
However, there are many minuses too. As mentioned the design is apparently
done by Yoshitaka Amano, a master artist who has exhibited his work in Paris and
New York and is famed for his androgynous character designs. You would
never guess this from watching the film, in fact it’s only on D that any
sign of his work can be seen. In fact a lot of the character design is
quite shoddy, with no two characters apparently drawn in the same style, and
some quite laughable monsters (particularly in the castle). A special note
must also be made for the Doctor character, who appears to change skin colour
randomly throughout the film…
Aside from this some of the action scenes are plain boring, with D
hacking his way through swathes of badly drawn and totally non-scary demons,
and the few lines of watered down red paint that are supposed to constitute
fountains of blood are laughable. The dialogue is weak, and in places
particularly cheesy, and the English dub uses a truly bizarre mish-mash of
accents and includes some slightly pointless changes of dialogue.
The film ultimately has two major saving graces, and these are that it is great
no-brainer action film and that the final (and inevitable) confrontation between
D and Magnus, and the rebellion of one of Magnus’ lackeys just prior to
it, are excellent action set pieces. There is a pointless bit of timelapse
style animation at the end that doesn’t really work, and a cheesy ending
reminiscent of the old western Shane, but there is some depth to be found
(although you’d be hard pressed to notice it without listening to anime pundit
Jonathan Clements’ excellent commentary) and it must be said that Vampire
Hunter D is enjoyable to watch. It most certainly isn’t as good as
other action films in Manga’s canon, but it is a solid actioner with a
decent idea as its core and has some good set pieces, particularly towards the
end. It definitely doesn’t warrant a full price purchase, but if you see
this cheap and are a fan of vampire films you could do worse than picking this
up. You could also do better though…
Extras
As well as the usual Manga Previews
we also get an image gallery and character profiles, which are nothing
spectacular. However, we also get another superb commentary by anime
expert Jonathan Clements, which is as hugely informative as always and is worth
buying the film for on its own.
Ratings
Feature:
Extras:
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