Anime

Absolutely flawless work of art by the extremely talented Hayao Miyazaki. An incredible masterpiece which just blew me away. It's unbelieveable how beautiful and wild one's imagination can be.

Fucking hell! This is amazing. Absolutely loved it. And that's coming from someone who's not even into the whole anime thing.

One of Hayao Miyazaki's more underrated gems. A beautiful film by any means which once again showcases the incredible talent and imagination the guy possesses. This one's in a way quite similar to Princess Mononoke in the sense both carry a strong ecological message.

One of Miyazaki's earliest works. For a film made in 1986, the animation still looks remarkably good and it's more or less the usual Hayao Miyazaki magic. A wonderful treat for all ages.

29 October 2008

Fascinatingly beautiful storyline, breathtaking visuals and animation and an impressive soundtrack. What more could you ask? It can't get any more unpredictable and original than this.

A masterpiece by the ever so wonderfully talented director Hayao Miyazaki.

Goro Miyazaki's (Hayao Miyazaki's son) directorial debut if I'm not mistaken. Comparisions between the two are inevitable I guess but this is a long way from being nearly as good as one of Hayao Miyazaki's masterpieces. It's not bad at all but it doesn't quite live up to the magic and brilliance of most other Ghibli Studio productions. Well, aside from the quality of animation and music that is, which was superb. Also I was unfortunate enough to get myself a dubbed copy and I do hate watching dubbed versions of foreign films.

I can't really say I'm disappointed since I wasn't expecting too much to begin with but let's hope the next one is an improvement on this. Two talented Miyazaki's would be better than one for any film lover.

15 July 2009

Had it's flaws but it's simply one of the best vampire flicks I've ever seen be it animated or live action. Hands down. Love the whole story or the idea and the dark art is brilliant. The ending could've been better though perhaps.

The animation is pretty outdated and it's understandable since this came out in 1985 but it's nonetheless quite good for it's time. Even now worth the watch for the storyline.

Not to be confused with Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust which came out in 2000 and is quite a big improvement on this.

14 August 2008

Quite bad. Didn't like it at all.

-Flixster just fucking deleted my original review for this-

It's a great anime with a lot of blood and violence but a bit too short for my liking and left me unsatisfied. Had they worked a bit more on character development, this would've been a fine film.

18 May 2008

(will review soon)

The animation is top notch for it's time but somehow there's a feeling of emptiness, as if something huge was missing. Maybe it's me.

After watching the highly coveted Hellsing anime tv series, I was quite disappointed. It just wasn't good enough for me. It had a great storyline but the screenplay based on 13 episodes just had way too many plot holes and it was too short & unsatisfying, but I always thought the story had so much untapped potential.

This is where that potential finally comes to fruition. This is the original video adaptation (commonly reffered to as OVA) of the Hellsing story and from what I hear it's more faithful to the manga on which the series is based on. I don't read manga and honestly don't know if it's true or not and I'm not really bothered by that either way though. The only thing that matters to me is the fact that this kicks so much ass. One of the best Vampire stories out there I'd say without a doubt.

The quality of animation is simply stunning when compared to the tv series or even most other anime's for that matter. The Tarantino-esque music utilised in the tv series isn't there any more as well and is replaced by a more classical European orchesrtra inspired approach which works quite fine as well. Another big change is the story is no longer told from the veiwpoint of Seras and I like it a lot more now. The original voice cast is retained though and it's a good thing.

It still has some flaws though, atleast in the first film, which I could live with. For one thing, this first film of the new series has almost like a half of the 13 episodes (around 20 minutes or so each) from the original series compacted into one 50 minute film. So basically a lot happens in a very short amount of time and anyone new to it might find it a bit overwhelming. So even though the original series isn't too good, I'd probably recommend you to watch it before trying this out. A good thing though is there's a lot more comic relief in here and the characters all have much more depth in them and the quality of characters I think is one of the things that really makes this so good.

How a story could work with such a badass protagonist - an almost immortal vampire with a fine sense of dark humour, sarcasm and a craving for bloodshed - it's hard to imagine but believe me, this is brilliant. I fucking love that evil grin on his face. So far, upto Hellsing IV has been released and it's just getting better and better. I can't wait for more.

Sort of like a cross between 'Princess Mononoke' and 'Nausicaa'. The animation as well as the storyline was pretty nice but the dialogue sounded a bit too cheesy. I watched a dubbed version and it could be either bad dubbing or writing. I don't really know for sure.

3 September 2008

"It belongs on any list of the greatest war films ever made" - Roger Ebert

I concur. A masterpiece for sure that is incredibly moving and unlike many others, show the harsh realities of war from the view point of the innocent. A war film where the civilian takes the center stage rather than the soldier. It's sad but then again, war isn't supposed to be happy.

Stunning animation, great music (reminds me of Braveheart) and an equally impressive storyline to accompany it. The fighting scenes in particular were really well done but quite graphic in nature with all the blood and gore.

Highly recommended for anyone who finds the heroic and legendary tales of Japanese samurai's fascinating.

Miyazaki never disappoints and I love that cat. So adorable.

31 October 2008

25 April 2009

(will review soon)

The whole idea is basically lifted off the Hellsing series. An age long conflict between vampires and humans interrupted by a third party which teams up with the vampires in an attempt to destroy mankind. The difference with Hellsing here is that in Hellsing, the Vatican is kind of the enemy along with the vampires and the Nazi's. Here, the Vatican is on the good side while the vampires (to an extent) and another organisation (which totally resembles the Nazi's in Hellsing) are the bad guys. The basic plots are quite similar but the execution is awful in this case.

Abel (the main character) is basically ripped off from Alucard of the Hellsing series, but comes disguised with a different personality and costume. His powering mechanism thing is almost an exact copy. What disapppoints me though is unlike Alucard, Abel's real form and alter ego has little in common making it all look rather disjointed. Abel's costume If I remember correctly look pretty much like what Alucard from Castlevania wears.

Tres is another character which seems to be a rip off. Totally reminds me of Cleric (Christian Bale) from Equilibrium. There's a lot of talk on the imdb boards about similarities with Trigun as well but I haven't watched Trigun so I don't really know that.

The biggest problem I had with the characters though was the fact that many looked alike and there were way too many of them introduced with little build up or background to them. Not saying there weren't one or two good characters but there's little originality here and some of them definitely could've done with more screen time instead of introducing new characters each and every episode. Having said that, some were actually quite horrible. Like the teenage Pope with that whiney voice. I swear I wanted to fucking strangle the guy. Even the main character (Abel) was poorly done. There was way too much attempted humor which I found as funny as your average fart joke; which is not funny at all. To make it short, most characters sucked.

As for the voice cast, it's horrible. Too much use of whiney voices. Japanese itself is a bit annoying and this made it almost unbearable. The animation I'd say is poor for it's time. Looks like something made around 1993 or so.

Also the ending is kind of abrupt coz I hear the author of the manga (on which this series is based) died and they had to end it or something like that. So overall, there's little here which is worth watching and the only reason I watched the whole thing was I don't like stopping halfway through unless it's completely unbearable. Even though this was quite bad, the story was still a bit okay I guess.

Go watch "Hellsing Ultimate" or "Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust" if you really wanna watch a good anime with vampires. Now if you're wondering why I wrote such a long review for something I didn't like this much, the reason is I expected a lot more.

I've heard a lot about the tv series but have never watched it yet so I decided to give the film version a go. The animation is great but otherwise it's pretty average I think.

23 October 2008

Much better than the first film and there's some pretty kickass characters this time around.

23 October 2008

"Watch ... your damn mouth. Coz I'm coming"

Afro is back. You'll like it if you love stylized violence. That's all what this is about but for me the best thing about it has always been Samuel Jackson's character.

15 February 2009

Great animation and a good story. The negative reviews are a bit surprising. Personally I like the steampunk style a lot.

23 March 2009

23 July 2009