Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12373 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-06-02
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL
• Original language: English, German, Japanese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 85 minutes

DVD Description
The year is 12,090 AD and vampires plague the Earth. The world has undergone a cataclysmic upheaval, leaving mere mortals struggling to survive in a bizarre and nightmarish environment. Controlling this hell is a motley crew of beasts led by Count Magnus Lee – hungry for his next unfortunate human wife. A lone champion – a mysterious vampire hunter known only as "D", challenges the stranglehold these arrogant immortals have over their helpless victims. Hired to protect a young villager from Count Lee’s unholy bloodlust, "D" faces his greatest adversary yet.

Special Features

• Audio Commentary by Jonathan Clements
  
• Character Profiles
  
• Image Gallery
  
• Manga Previews

DVD Technical Information:

• Digitally remastered
  
• English, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
  
• English Stereo 2.0
  
• Running Time: 90 mins approx.

Synopsis
Combining romance, gothic horror, science fiction, and bloody action into a dazzling Anime production, VAMPIRE HUNTER D (2000) takes the vampire mythos to a new level. This movie is not a remake or a continuation of the 1985 movie of the same title. That movie was loosely based on the first of Kikuchi Hideyuki's VAMPIRE HUNTER D books, set 10,000 years in the future. VAMPIRE HUNTER D (2000) takes its cue from the third book in the series, though there are significant deviations in plot. Here, the charismatic vampire, Meier Link, arrives in town in the middle of the night and spirits away a beautiful woman. D, the child of a human and a vampire, is hired to retrieve her. Racing against time and against another group of bounty hunters who were also contracted to perform the rescue, D fights a bizarre cast of Meier's henchmen, each of whom has his own unique and horrific way of killing. Both of the VAMPIRE HUNTER D films benefit from the participation of fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano, whose character designs for both films drip with the eroticism and decadence of a Gustav Klimt painting. Director Yoshiaki Kawajiri adds his talent at dreaming up gruesome enemies, which was also evidenced in his previous work, NINJA SCROLL.

Customer Reviews

great atmosphere but ultimately poor plot and dialogue
This started off as a straight forward anime with a young girl finding herself in trouble on vampiric land. The plot quickly plummets with some ridiculous dialogue and the lead characters are never developed further. In addition, we end up having lots of 'loose ends' such as why Vampire D has a talking hand and what its purpose ultimately is for, why his robotic horse doesn't actually do much? This was a pretty poor DVD overall and I felt like I had wasted my time. Get the anime HELLSING which is much better.

Dampeel
"Vampire Hunter D" is a pretty deserving anime classic -- moody hero, gothic atmosphere, and buckets of blood.

While the animation is a bit dated, the solid direction and creepy story are more than enough to compensate. This dark, gloomy adaptation of Hideyuki Kikuchi's novels is a postapocalyptic cowboy/vampire story... with a twist. And boy, is it a twist.

Farm girl Doris is bitten by the ancient Count Lee (named after Christopher Lee), and is in danger of turning into a vampire herself. But fortunately she encounters D, a silent vampire hunter who agrees to protect her and her little brother from the Count and his underlings.

But Doris gets kidnapped despite D's efforts, and D sneaks into the castle and battles past mutants and snake-women to rescue Doris. But that isn't the end of the conflict -- Lee is determined to have Doris for his new wife, and D is just as determined to destroy the malign old vampire.

"Vampire Hunter D" looks a little dated to modern anime fans -- kind of smudgy and stiff (look at D's weird stabbing scene). Fortunately, the story more than makes up for this -- basically it's an old western, but with monsters, vampires, and cyborg horses.

The whole thing is very dark and shadowy, even in prim little towns, up until the final scenes when we finally see some sun. The storyline moves pretty slowly for awhile, but speeds up rapidly when Doris is abducted the second time, right up to the earthshattering finale.

It's also peppered with some solid fight scenes, as well as the gore: severed limbs, electric whips, exploding heads, flying organs and literal gushers of blood. While the tone is quite grim, some of the dialogue is pretty funny ("For the first time in one hundred years I haven't been bored once!"). Including everything said by Left Hand, the hilarious parasite in D's... left hand.

D himself is an enigma for most of the movie -- repressed, quiet, kind to kids, but with a hidden vampiric side that only turns up occasionally. It takes careful attention to figure out who this "dampeel" is. And while Doris could have been a bit tougher, she comes across very realistically as a young girl in a terrifying situation.

"Vampire Hunter D" is a postapocalyptic goth movie, with a likably taciturn hero,a timeless storyline, and a lot of graphic anime violence.

A Timeless Classic
Being a big fan of Vampire Hunter D, I wanted to see the original as well as the more recently released Bloodlust. I actually had no idea there was an original until not long ago, so I thought it would be worth a look.
On my first viewing, it brought a great sense of nostalgia upon me as I remembered my younger childhood years because of the 80s animation - the cartoons I watched when I was small were also made with 80s animation.
The makers of the film played about with tension and got great results from the very first scene. The coming together of the futuristic and gothic genres is just another one of the features that makes this film an amazing watch.
For an animated film that was made so long ago, I was suprised at how much gore was in it. I'm not usually a fan of gore, but I was just able to bear it with this film. Some things can be made to seem a lot worse with animation, and one of them is violence. Though there was quite a lot of graphic violence in this film, its not as if they have just thrown in the odd senseless blood spurting scene here and there - they have used the element of violence in this film to an extent that adds to the brilliance of the plot.
For every viewer, there is a favourite character for them. They are created with amazing thought, and their characteristics affect others in exactly the way they are supposed to. For example: D's character makes the viewer ponder about his ambitions, and Reiganzi's character strikes fear and shock into the viewer.
One downer I must bring up however is the use of female nudity and the subtle element of unrequited romance within the film, which I think tarnishes the film's reputation a little bit.
Nevertheless, this is one stunner of a film that is essential for any anime horror lover's DVD collection.