Set thousands years in the future where vampires used to rule the night but that have been reduced in numbers due to bounty hunters. One of these bounty hunters is a halfbreed called D; A dhampir with a human mother and a vampire father. When a young girl named Charlotte is kidnapped by a vampire named Meier Link, the girl's father hires D and also a rival group of hunters named the Markus brothers to retrieve her. When trying to catch up with Meier Link and the girl, D and the other group has to fight hordes of demons and travel far across a land that has dangers lurking in every corner. But as they come closer to their target, both D and the group begins to suspects that the girl wasn't kidnapped after all and that she might have gone with Link out of her own free will.
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is the sequel to the animated Vampire Hunter D movie that came out in 1985 and is in fact just as good as the original. This film, being made 15 years after the release of the first movie of course looks a lot better, even though the original still looks great even today. Bloodlust, just like the first flick was based on a popular novel-size comic book written by Hideyuki Kikuchi and illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano where we get to follow a halfbreed named D who's a silent bounty hunter with a human mother and a vampire father. D makes a living slaying vampires, and while he's absolutely great at his job, he still constantly has to fight his urge to drink blood, because underneath it all, he still has a lot of vampire instincts in him. I used to watch anime on a regulary basis when I was younger, but even though I hardly watch any nowadays, I would have to say that Bloodlust is so worth watching, whether you're into the genre or not. It's simply just an amazing flick.
The character D has a few similarities to Clint Eastwoods character in Sergio Leone's spaghetti western films, and those films definitely comes to mind when watching Bloodlust as well as the original. They're both bounty hunter, extremely good at what they do and most of all, either one of them doesn't say too much as well as they've something that is dark and mysterious surrounding them. Now, the films of D are of course set in a totally different time and landscape, but the movies sure have a few things in common. Just like Eastwood's character, D is very likable even though he doesn't say too much, but it's more his actions that shows that what he's doing is (for most of the time) something good.
 
I don't know if it's just me, but sometimes when watching some types of anime flicks, I can find it to be really difficult to get into the story with too many characters, too much background story that needs to be taken in and such. It might also be that I don't really have a genuine interest in most anime flicks so that my brain, without me telling it to, kinda switches over to off-mode whenever I try to watch these films. Not sure what it is, but I can tell you that Bloodlust is extremely easy to get into and that it has a story that is quite simple, yet very interesting not to mention captivating. The character named D is easy to root for and it's super simple to keep track of all the (few) characters that are in this movie, and they are all great in their own way too.
So why is this such a good flick? Well, first off you have your hero who's just such an awesome character, and throughout the movie you feel that you wanna get to know him deeper while the film at the same time teases you and lets you get to know just enough to make it work - and it all works out perfectly. Secondly, you have all the extremely cool looking monsters and fights that really are to die for. Don't expect those usual boring anime type of fights, but instead everything here is quite brutal and visually stunning, and you can't wait to see more and more people being killed, it just looks so darn good. Ok, it might sound a bit sick what I'm saying, but watch the film and you'll understand. Talking about visually stunning, the animation in this movie is absolutely fantastic and everything looks truly amazing. It has all these great looking visuals, but it's never so much that it takes focus off the story or the characters themselves. That's what's separates a movie like this from a movie like Blood: The Last Vampire which looked truly beautiful, but that was in fact pretty hollow on the inside when thinking about it...just like with a lot of girls out there if you know what I'm saying.
Even if you're not into animation and such, don't dismiss this movie just because of that reason alone. I'm almost certain that if you would take time to watch it, you'd also truly enjoy and dig it. For horror fans, this movie is great and for people who are into animation as well as horror, this one's da bomb.
Back to Asian Review Archive
|
ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Vampaia hantâ D
MOVIE YEAR: 2000
DIRECTOR: Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Jack Fletcher
WRITING CREDITS: Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Hideyuki Kikuchi
GENRE: Animation, Action, Adventure, Horror, Thriller
CAST: Hideyuki Tanaka, Kôichi Yamadera, Megumi Hayashibara
COUNTRY: Japan, Hong Kong, USA
RUNTIME: 103 min
RATING: 10/10
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust Website/IMDB Click here
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust Trailer Click here
|
