Vampire Wars

I used to be a huge fan of anime when it was rare to find it anywhere in WV.  I had seen some of it and liked that it was different and that not everybody was familiar with it.  Of course then it started becoming easier to find.  My wife and I bought a bunch of anime videos from Blockbuster back in the 90s.  Some were good, some were great, and some were horrible.  When I started buying DVDs, Columbia House offered an Anime DVD club.  I joined and received several anime DVDs before we cancelled the membership.  I continued to watch for used anime at FYE and at Wills.  FYE was where I ran across Vampire Wars, I believe.  I bought it and never got around to sitting down to watch it.  Of course since that time Big Lots has offered numerous anime DVD buy outs, and I have bought a lot of them.  Recently I picked up a couple of volumes of Speed Grapher and Desert Punk.  The thing is that anime is so mainstream now, and my kids are into it so deeply, that it has lost much of its appeal for me.  That and the voices, especially the female voices, tend to grate on my nerves after a bit.  Don’t get me wrong.  I still like anime.  I just don’t go nuts over it like I did in the 80s and 90s.

Vampire Wars is an anime.  It’s also a pretty decent action film with a supernatural element.  Some of the animation is the standard anime trick of using a static shot and moving the camera around.  This is much cheaper as the drawing does not have to be animated.  Another standard trick of using action lines to simulate movement is also used quite frequently.  Those elements can often distract me from the action, but it wasn’t the case here.  The action is fast paced and the tone is very adult without stepping over into hentai anime.  There is plenty of violence and blood, the language sounds right for the characters, and there is very tasteful nudity as well.  But don’t expect any demon phalluses as in La Blue Girl or Ogenki Clinic. 

The plot involves a man protecting a girl with a very special type of blood.  It’s fairly easy to see where the story is going, but it’s still fun getting there.  Watching Kuki in this film made me want to check out Golgo 13 or Ichi Episode 0.  Kuki is a bad ass.  I give Vampire Wars 2 1/4 stars.

Lady Snowblood

I am a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino and having heard how Lady Snowblood helped inspire Kill Bill, I wanted to check it out.  I was fortunate enough to find a used copy at FYE one time.  I brought it home, but for whatever reason, I never did get around to watching it.  I kept planning to sit down with it, but always found a reason not to.  I finally decided to put it in and give it a watch.  I’m glad I did. Like the Babycart Assassin and Zatoichi films, Lady Snowblood is very enjoyable.

The film deals with a young girl that was brought into the world strictly to become a weapon of revenge.  Her father and brother had been killed and her mother raped by a gang of four.  The mother had eventually killed one of the gang, an act which got her sent to prison for life.  The only way to make the other three pay was to bear a child that could train and take them out.  Her child, Yuki, was trained under the harsh tutelage of a priest that appears to be the inspiration for Pai Mei in Kill Bill: Vol.2.  Once Yuki is trained she begins her quest for revenge. 

The plot may seem very simple, but it is actually much more complex.  When Yuki kills Takemura Banzo, she begins a vengeance quest for his daughter as well.  Along the way a writer is drawn into the mix and his background and relationship with Yuki further complicates things. 

The fighting in Lady Snowblood is done very well.  One fight scene was obviously the inspiration for the fight in Kill Bill with the Crazy 88 and O-Ren Ishii.  Even the set design is incredibly similar to the O-Ren sequence. 

The DVD from AnimEgo is a beautiful transfer with wonderful colors.  The blood is bright red and looks more like red paint than blood when it pools out of a body, but it works very well in the context of this movie which was based on a popular manga.  I give Lady Snowblood 3 stars.

The Final Countdown

The Final Countdown came out in 1980 while I was in high school.  I remember the ads and I also seem to remember it playing on HBO a few years later.  Somehow I never got around to seeing it.  Maybe it was because it seemed to be a war movie and I wasn’t a big fan of war movies at the time.  I never really gave the film much thought until The Digital Bits website started talking about it.  Apparently there was a bit of a cult following on the film and they were anticipating a DVD release that seemed to keep falling through the cracks.  I seemed to remember hearing that a DVD was finally released from whatever company that was, but that the quality was severely lacking.  Either way it never got a major retail release.  Then in 2004 Blue Underground released the film on DVD.  There was a regular DVD and a 2 Disc Limited Edition in a clear blue case with a lenticular image of the movie poster used for the cover.  As you turned the case, the aircraft carrier would disappear.  It was a pretty cool effect and when coupled with the limited edition actually being numbered, albeit in an edition of 100000, it was a DVD I decided I had to add to my collection.  I picked up a copy at FYE which is still shrink-wrapped and sitting in my collection.  I also found a copy at Wills which I decided to purchase as well.  That’s the one (#23328 of 100000) that I decided to pop into the DVD player on Tuesday night.

The plot concerns a nuclear powered aircraft carrier that runs into a freak electrical storm that picks the ship up and deposits it back in time to December 6, 1941 just hours before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Should the ship use its knowledge of the future and its power to prevent the act of aggression that pulled the US into WWII?  The film explores the potential to change history and what that might do to the future.  The Captain goes back and forth on his opinion of whether to attack, defend, or stay out of it as a neutral observer.

I enjoyed the movie, but I’m not as ardent a fan as the ones that waited 24 years for it to show up on DVD.  I liked the feel of the film shot as it was at the end of the 1970s with no CGI and without the studio cookie cutter feel of today’s movies.  I can’t see the film ending the same way it did if it were made today.  There would have to be a huge CGI battle between the Japanese armada and the American planes. 

The DVD contains a commentary track as well as theatrical trailers and TV spots.  The second disc features interviews and a poster gallery.  I give The Final Countdown 2 1/2 stars but I still love the DVD case and give it 4 stars for the packaging.  The transfer looks nice, so points to Blue Underground for that as well.

Family Guy Peter Griffin Vs. The Giant Chicken

I was browsing through FYE back in late January and I ran across what appeared to be a FYE exclusive.  It was a DVD with all three of the Family Guy episodes that featured Peter Griffin fighting the giant chicken.  I have watched Family Guy, but I am not a rabid fan by any stretch.  At the same time, I am not a rabid anti-Family Guy person either.  I think it’s funny, but not as drop dead funny as Robot Chicken or Frisky Dingo.  On average I like South Park better than Family Guy, but there are episodes of Family Guy that I like better than certain episodes of South Park.  That being said, I own all of the Family Guy season sets as well as Blue Harvest and Stewie Griffin. 

Of the three episodes on the chicken trilogy disc, I had only seen one, the middle one.  The first episode on the disc was Da Boom.  Peter is out picking stuff up for a millenium party when he is warned about Y2K and how it would be the end of the world.  Naturally he overreacts and converts his basement into a fallout shelter to protect him and his family from the upcoming apocalypse.  When the clock strikes midnight, all of a sudden Peter is proven right.  Planes fall out of the sky, nuclear missiles launch, the world comes to an end.  Peter and his family now have to deal with the post apocalyptic world and their mutated friends (and eventually family).  The first chicken fight takes place during Peter’s early shopping trip as he explains to a man in a chicken suit why he never accepts coupons from chickens.  Apparently the giant chicken had given Peter an expired coupon and that started their city spanning fight with Peter punching and the chicken pecking until Peter appears triumphant and walks away.  The episode ends with a very special twist ending featuring live action actors from another famous series.

The second episode, Blind Ambition, finds Peter trying to do something that he can be publicly recognized for.  All of his buddies have some sort of award or press accolades, and Peter wants that too.  He ends up deciding to go for a world’s record, but choosing one that causes him to go blind (eating nickels).  This time the chicken ambushes Peter as he is standing on the sidewalk talking to his neighbors.  The fight gets more outlandish, culminating in a Raiders of the Lost Ark spoof with an airplane.

The final episode, No Chris Left Behind, concerns Chris getting kicked out of school in order for the school to improve its standings and receive funds for No Child Left Behind.  Lois talks to her father and he gets Chris accepted at a posh private school for the rich.  Once again the chicken appears out of nowhere and he and Peter are at it again, but this time they end up talking and decide that they don’t really recall why exactly it is that they are fighting.  They shake hands and end up going out to dinner with the wife of the giant chicken at an out-of-the-way restaurant.  The meal goes great, but when it is time to pick up the check, they begin to argue about who gets to pay for the meal.  This leads to another fight and once more Peter walks away the winner.

There aren’t any bonus features as this was done mainly as a promotional item.  All three episodes are enjoyable with Da Boom probably being my favorite.  However if you judge them solely on the chicken fights, No Chris Left Behind probably takes the prize.  Family Guy is a staple of Adult Swim which is about the closest thing we currently have to Night Flight.  So on the Night Flight scale Da Boom gets a 9, Blind Ambition gets an 8 and No Chris Left Behind gets an 8 1/2.  Overall, I would rate the DVD as 3 stars.