Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust Urban Vision 105 minutes English 02/12/2002

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Nothing like taking a month off from writing reviews and leaving your loyal fan base out in the cold. Yes, now I know I DO have a fan base. This review is a shout out to one 'peter' from Grosse Pointe, MI. The first person to voice their love of my work that wasn't in an e-mail that I quickly deleted because I didn't feel like replying. Here's to you peter, you've touched my life in ways you couldn't possibly understand. You, peter, are the wind beneath my wings. But what about Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust? Or as I like to call it, Yoshiaki Kawajiri's Rockin' Vampire Fun Fest. If there's one thing I like about all the D stuff I've seen** is that the vampire always gets it in the end. If there's one thing I hate more than the Tsetse fly it's a romanticized view of vampires. The only view of vampires -I- want is that of their exploding skulls as they're killed by silver, garlic, crosses. What have you.

The only problem is that our antagonist, one Meier Link, doesn't seem terribly perplexed by crosses. That, and there isn't a hint of garlic in the movie. I guess there's silver. The fact is if you've got a bigass gun that leaves exit wounds the size of TEXAS, I guess you don't really need the more conventional methods of vampire slaying. That, and a giant hammer works pretty well too. What am I talking about? Why, the Markus brothers. These four guys and one (incredibly hot) girl are D's newest competition in the job to rescue a rich cowboy's daughter from the evil Meier Link and his awesome cape that turns into steel and gets all pointy and stuff. The Markus brothers don't have much of a problem laying waste to thirty thousand vampires in the first ten minutes of the movie. The trouble sets in when they get set up against an entire city of mercenary demons hired by some mysterious person to protect the travel of Meier Link and his captive Charlotte.

So it's a wild race to some unknown destination with the Markus brothers constantly trying to hinder D's progress so that they can get that sweet sweet ten million dollar bounty. D, in his godlike style, constantly brushes off their attacks with a surreal grace that can only say one thing: "I'm the main character". Then we're handed the some old same old as Leila of the Markus "brothers" falls in love with the incredibly sexy vampire hunter and his pointy hat. The animation, music, everything in this movie will find no complaints from me. My only real problem is with D's character design and that's something I've always had beef with. All the same I guess it's okay. I'm not trying to SLEEP with him after all. Well... I don't think I am anyway. The plot is strong enough, I guess, and a bit more interesting to watch develop than the previous D flick. More than that though we have a character that was BORN (i.e.: drawn) to be voiced by Mike Reynolds. I don't know, maybe Mike's dead or something but I can't see why he didn't get the part of stogie smoking, crossbow wielding Borgoff when Borgoff looks EXACTLY THE SAME AS EVERY OTHER CHARACTER MIKE HAS EVER PLAYED.

But I digress. Even the voice acting I have no complaints against. Not much anyway. The guy they got to play Borgoff does a well, but he'll never be my real father, and I've always liked D, regardless of the fact that he says about ten things through out the movie. I guess the thing I'm most proud of is how much of a slap in the face this movie is to those overzealous sub fans. This movie was English first. However, that the DVD doesn't have a Japanese language track makes it feel a bit empty. It'd be like adding a coherent plot to the Fist Of The Northstar movie, it'd fix the problem... but would it really improve anything? Even with some of the ridiculous idea used in this*** Bloodlust is still a pretty quality adventure through the world of the vampire infested "distant future". Whomever's decision it was to say distant future instead of TEN THOUSAND years in the future deserves a medal or something. That was the most ingenious thing in the entire movie. Bloodlust is a winner in any language. Any language that's English at least, because I haven't seen it in anything else. Though with a dub this sexy I don't particularly care to. Urban Vision's choice to put the keepcase in that weird paper sliding deal is one of my only qualms with it. It's really tough to get the damn thing out of it. But I'll live, and you will too... unless you don't buy Yoshiaki Kawajiri's Rockin' Vampire Fun Fest. Or as the chic kids are calling it: Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.

**All two of them!

*** The werewolf with the giant mouth in its stomach that looked like Gemma from Ninja Scroll was my favorite.