Search - Lady Death on DVD

Welcome to HELL

Bennet Pomerantz | Seabrook, Maryland | 10/13/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This DVD is a reissue of Lady Death - The Motion Picture, Now I enjoy this reissue.

The story like is more creative license with the comic book character. The origin story is good..BUT it is not the comic book's Lady Death.

With many under animated films lately, this is quality anime which shows thru. The lead animator had previous worked on Batman the animated Series and It shows in some of the action scenes. This is an adult cartoon, not something that Disney or Warners would do

I found this less gory than it should be. It should have had more violence..and It was a let down. Especially when Death challedges the Lord of Darkness.

Many people may find plot holes that an elephant can slip thru, try to overlook them. Blame Carl Masek's weak script for that.

One the whole, It isnt as good as Todd McFarlane's Spawn: Animated Collection (4pc) or Afro Samurai: Resurrection - Director's Cut, but it isnt something as bad as Delgo...but on the whole, it is worth getting for any anime collection

Bennet Pomerantz audioworld"

"Abandon Hope, ye who enter here."

trashcanman | Hanford, CA United States | 09/02/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Lady Death began "life" as a comic book villainess/anti-heroine in the mid-90's and eventually found her way to the small screen in a feature-length animated film brought to us a few years ago by ADV Films, who were a primary driving force behind anime's invasion of North America. The premise seems to be as follows: what if Spawn had boobs? Okay that's oversimplifying, but the parallels are several and Lady Death debuted but a year after Todd McFarlane's demonic anti-hero took the comic world by storm. Her foray into animation isn't awful by any means, but it does look shockingly like a more violent and sexual version of something that would have aired on Saturday mornings when I was a kid. That is not a compliment. But first let's set up the story.

Hope is a sweet young girl in love with a lame dweeb named Niccolo. Her daddy is a crusader for the Church who claims to be taking villagers for God's army. That is, until it turns out he's The Devil himself stealing souls in the name of God because he's a jerk like that. Daddy escapes, leaving Hope to bear the horrific brunt of the villager's wrath and offering her a chant that will grant her eternal life as a parting gift. As the pyre's flames burn the flesh from her body, she screams the words out in agony and is taken to Hell by flying demons who pluck her from her demise. Once she gets home, she finds Satan holding no only the soul of her lover, but that of her long-departed mother hostage and demanding her obedience. She spits in his face and is banished into the depths of The Abyss where she meets Lucifer's ex-blacksmith who has designs to overthrow big red, who apparently spends most of his time on a throne watching his fork-tongued concubines feel each other up. Not a bad life, I suppose. Anyways, turns out being the daughter of the Prince of Lies brings along with it some pretty killer telekinetic powers which the newly anointed Lady Death (having abandoned Hope) learns she can channel through objects such as swords. She begins gathering an army of disloyal demons to overthrow her father and there the fun begins. Pretty cool, yeah?

The first thing I noticed about "Lady Death" was the rather dated look to the animation even with the anime-influenced art style. This film was made five years ago. Come on now! I have no problems with old school animation for the most part. Heck, Vampire Hunter D is among my favorite films of all time. But for an adult feature film that came out just a few years ago to look like an early-90's kid's show, I've got to take a point away right off the bat. I haven't read the comics, but I've seen many images of the character and the illustrations I've seen are striking, ethereal, and less in the tone of 80's adult animation cheesefest Heavy Metal the this. The voice acting is average which I find shocking considering ADV Films once had an amazing stable of voice actors that infused their early anime DVD releases with dubs that were often superior to the original Japanese language tracks.

All superficiality aside this is still not an outstanding production by any stretch, but it's certainly not a total loss. I mean, did you not read the plot summary? Naturally, there comes with the infernal setting a fair amount of dark and demonic imagery. Lots of maggot-ridden corpses and beasties, and did I not mention fork-tongued lesbian concubines? There's also some decent violence, mostly beheadings and the like, and of course plenty of fanservice from The Lady herself, but I've seen it all done better before. But what can I say? I've got a thing for animated anti-heroines crusading through Hell on a mission of bloodshed. It's not the best comic book adaptation out there, but I do think it's really cool that a company like ADV is trying to branch out and bring animation fans something really cool that isn't just a Japanese import so kudos on that. Unfortunately, animation costs a lot of money and this one was very obviously made on a small budget. Better art and animation could have made this really killer. But still "Lady Death" is worth a look if this is your kind of thing and is worth supporting because American animation for grown-ups can be hard to find."