dee.reid I first got into Japanese animation (Anime') when I was a freshman in high school 16 years ago. During the summer of 2001, I got swept up in an Anime' binge. "Vampire Hunter D" (1985) and its sequel "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" (2000) were amongst some of the earliest Anime' features I ever watched."Vampire Hunter D" is a staple of my movie collection, but I haven't seen "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" in quite some time. I just got done watching it today. This film is routinely regarded as a superior sequel to the 1985 original, which was an Anime' adaptation of the Japanese sci-fi/horror novel series created by Hideyuki Kikuchi.One of the reasons for the success - even if the film is uneven in some spots - of "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" is due to its director, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, who also directed the classic Anime' films "Ninja Scroll" (1993) (my favorite film from the man) and "Wicked City" (1987), the latter of which was also an adaptation of a work by Hideyuki Kikuchi (which I've also read). Kawajiri is a master Japanese animation craftsman, as well as being notorious in the Anime' industry for making films that were explicit both in terms of extreme violence and sexuality/nudity."Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" has a lot of gory violence in it, but there's no sex in it whatsoever - showing that Kawajiri is exercising some restraint here. This film looks gorgeous, and has a sci-fi, neo-Gothic look and tone to it. Like the first film, the sequel "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" combines horror and science fiction with some elements of westerns and supernatural fantasy - though this actually becomes more apparent in this film than its 1985 predecessor.The film series, like those of the books, is set in the not-too-distant future where supernatural beasts like werewolves, goblins, demons and of course, vampires, rule the land. Humans live in fear of what lurks outside their doors at night, but there's one who fears none of them: D, a half-man, half-vampire hunter known as a "dunpeal" ("dhampir" to the rest of us).In this film, a beautiful young woman named Charlotte Elbourne is kidnapped from her bedroom one night by the extremely powerful nobleman bloodsucker Meier Link. Charlotte's family offers a massive bounty to bring her back at all costs - alive or dead. So D takes up the offer, but he's not working alone. The notorious Marcus Brothers - Borgoff, Kyle, Nolt, and two hangers-on including the psychic Groove and the orphaned Leila - are also out to collect the bounty, though circumstances force D and at the very least Leila to form an uneasy alliance to stop Link and rescue Charlotte.This is a sumptuous, gorgeous-looking Gothic Anime' feature. I'm glad that the strong visuals - which remained etched in my mind since I first saw the movie back in high school - still hold up after all these years. In fact, I remember the visuals and some of the set designs as being the strongest visual element from this picture, and the one thing that I remembered most about it. (And upon my viewing today, I thought I realized a visual reference toward the end of the film to Elizabeth Bathory, the so-called "Blood Queen of Hungary.")Though the film falters in some spots with regard to the action scenes and some of the characters, I still thoroughly enjoyed "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust."8/10

chaos-rampant I suppose the appeal here is the extravagant imagination surrounding a very simple core, chambara blown into vampire opera. Overall it isn't much to my taste. The imagination strikes me as arbitrary and shapeless, one minute we are in a hillside nature fighting zombies, the next in a desert with giant mantas flying out of the sand. I get more enjoyment from inhabiting an internally shaped world. Bladerunner instead of Dune.It has no limits to its fantasy, literally anything happens, and yet very simple limits to its story: forbidden love and revenge both tied to damnation. A Byronic antihero with a sword is our navigator. I find that it takes more work and more imagination in trying to envision ambiguous story limits, showing how this world is otherworldly and eerily cosmic. Mulholland Dr. instead of L'Ange.What's interesting is that the villains here embody all the structural elements missing from the actual fabric of the film. One of them can move in shadows, weaves illusions out of fabric and is himself that fabric of nothingness; in a marvelous scene he traps our hero inside an actual fabric. Another can take apparently any structure. A third creates illusions out of peoples' memory, and is also herself a spectral entity made up from illusion.So we have an unfathomable world where unfathomable beings embody extreme structural powers, a strange thing that ever so slightly charms.

Rectangular_businessman I must confess that I never understood all the hype about the original "Vampire Hunter D" movie: In my opinion, that movie was boring and poorly made, having very bad animation (Even for the time when it was made) clichéd characters, a generic plot which failed to deliver any sort of entertainment…Fortunately this new animated film(done by the same director of "Ninja Scroll") success in every single aspect where the previous "Vampire Hunter D" anime film failed: The animation is good, the designs are cool and stylish, the characters are interesting and better developed (Not like the annoying cardboard characters from the other movie) being also highly entertaining from the beginning to the end. The music is more than adequate, fitting very well for the atmosphere of each scene, capturing all the Gothic-western and post apocalyptic elements from the story.Even when the plot isn't something incredibly deep or complex, it still works very well.Personally, I think that this movie is much better than the other "Vampire Hunter D" movie in every single aspect. I highly recommend it.

plagued_f_o_n Im not normally a fan of anime. But this movie was exquisite in its detail, score and composition.The voice casting was perfect for the characters, especially the voice of Left Hand. The animation was really well-done, affording as much detail as possible. While it strayed a bit from the original story (Mashira wasn't some kind of werewolf, but rather a carbuncle that took form in people's stomachs, and Caroline was a dhampir that could control anything she drank from, whether its a tree or a machine) it's still a good story. I laughed a bit when they changed up Leila's relationship with the Markus brothers, as in the book, they are referred to as the Markus Clan, as Leila is their sister. This doesn't stop Kyle from making several lewd comments (fmi, read the book).One thing i didn't like, IIRC, they added Carmilla to the movie. She wasn't in the book, but, that's IIRC. And they didn't use D's pendant, although there was ample opportunity.This time around, though, they really hit home on how long D's been around, in the scene with the old man, and the end when he's at the funeral. What some people don't realize, is that D's been around since the mid-1940's. Which makes him at least 10k years old. Im hoping they make more movies, as the books continue to get better and better, and are great reads, no matter how many times you've read them previously.