|
Viewers with an appetite for relentless vampiric bloodletting,
Hitchcockian pyschosexual thrills and jaw-droppingly bizarre
tentacle sex need look no further for visual satisfaction
than Manga Entertainment's second series in the Manga
Essentials collection...
This
is the second volume in Manga's
Manga Essential series.
While the first collection did indeed do what it said on the
tin, this second collection is hardly an essential purchase.
Volume
1 had Akira,
Ghost in the Shell and Ninja Scroll, while this
second collection includes Blood, the Last Vampire,
Perfect Blue and Urotsukidoji (Legend of
the Overfiend and Legend of the Demon Womb). I
think it's fair to say that this volume collects together
three very different movies that range from the great (Blood)
to the very poor (Urotsukidojo), with Perfect Blue
being somewhere in the middle.
Blood
(2000) is the most interesting film in the collection - and
the only one I'd recommend anyone really should see. It follows
the only original vampire left on earth. She is part of a
secret organisation whose job it is to rid the world of a
new breed of monstrous shape-shifting vampires. While this
is a great movie is is sadly
only around 40 minutes in length.
Perfect
Blue (1999) follows Mima, a pop idol who drops her music
career to pursue acting. A soap opera role is offered but
Mima's character is less clean cut than desired. Regardless,
she agrees. Reality starts to slip away as her pop idol persona
appears to her to tell her what a stupid mistake she has made.
An Internet site is discovered that describes every intimate
detail of Mima's life - but no one could know that much detail.
Her friends and associates are threatened (and killed) as
Mima descends into a dangerous world of paranoid delusion.
She fears for her life and must unravel fact from fiction
in order to stay alive.
This
movie is billed as Akira meets Basic Instinct...
hmm not sure that that's really accurate - and if it were
is certainly not the mix that would really drive me to watch
it. The twist in the tale has been done a million times before
(and better) but this is still quite an engaging movie.
Finally
we have two movies on the Urotsukidoji disc. First
up is Legend of the Overfiend (1993) followed by Legend
of the Demon Womb (1993). I can't comment on the second
movie because I just couldn't watch it. I had trouble slogging
through the first movie and when I realised the sequel was
just more of the same I feared for my sanity and switched
it off. It's hardly the kind of movie that you'd show someone
to get them hooked on anime movies. Mildly pornographic and
more than a little dull mean that I certainly wouldn't put
this on my essentials list.
There
were plenty of extra content on the discs we got for review,
but as the
discs we received seemed to have been the original single
disc editions I'm not sure how many of them will be on this
new collection. It's unclear whether this box set is simply
these three releases repackaged in a cardboard slipcase or
whether Manga Entertainment has simply issued this collection
with stripped down discs with no extras on them.
On
the whole, £20 for this collection is not bad value
for money - just give Urotsukido to someone you don't
like very much and you have yourself two interesting movies.
Pete
Boomer
Buy
this item online
We
compare prices online so you get the cheapest
deal!
Click on the logo of the desired store below
to purchase this item.
|
|
|
£14.99
(Amazon.co.uk) |
| |
|
|
|
£14.99
(Play.com) |
| |
|
|
|
£12.99
(HMV.co.uk) |
| |
|
|
|
£13.49
(Sendit.com) |
| |
|
|
|
£13.49
(Bensons-world.co.uk) |
| |
|
|
|
£13.97
(Thehut.com) |
All prices correct at time of going to press.
|
|
