Lady Death: The Motion Picture - Anime Reviews


	Length 80 Minutes Language Options - English/English Subtitles for Hearing Impaired Suggested Viewing 17+ Extras - Visions of Hell Featurette [Watch the evolution of the characters and key background designs] - Animating Death Featurette [Interviews with key animation production team] - Director’s Commentary
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Lady Death: The Motion Picture (DVD)

Only in death does she find the will to live.

Her legend begins in the 15^th Century, stripped of her innocence through her father’s betrayal, a pious, young woman, Hope, is sentenced to a trial by fire. She reluctantly accepts Lucifer’s offer of life in hell over a hideously painful death. Lucifer’s offer takes a diabolical twist as she discovers her true origins and the existing fate of her lost love and departed mother.

Unable to corrupt a soul of such purity, Lucifer banishes Hope to the horrors of hell, where she must find the strength and courage to survive and ultimately return to free the souls of the ones she loves. Together with the valiant outcast, Cremator and her trusted companion, Vassago and the Nameless Wolves, she is transformed into the powerful warrior Lady Death and challenges the Lord of Lies for control of Hell itself.

The resulting conflict explores the depths of faith and love as an alternative to the corrupting power of evil.

Based on the epic comic book series.

There has been a bit of press in anime circles from the advertisement of Lady Death, and although it has been called an “anime”, it is an American sponsored release from a Korean art house. That being said, the bulk of the animation quality reminded me much more of 1980’s alternate animated movies like Heavy Metal, and

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considering that time period is 20 years ago, that’s a problem. The animation quality does have spikes of brilliance though, some of the character close ups are really cool but the bulk of the film does have a 2^nd string animator feel to it. A majority of the film is storytelling, but there are some massive battle scenes involving hundreds if not thousands of demons and tons of blood and gore to go around.

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The story though is good, if not simplistic. The main character, Hope, is a young girl in 1400’s Sweden where she is the daughter of a local lord. Hope is a beautiful young blonde girl who is devoutly religious, and cares greatly for her parents (including her recently departed mother) and admirer Nicola. Her father has been involved in a series of major skirmishes over religious doctrine, and is currently reinforcing his army with conscripts from the nearby town including Hope’s would-be lover. The local citizens have become discontent with the war-mongering lord harming their lives, so they begin to revolt under the leadership of the town priest. The revolt quickly becomes violent as the citizens storm the family keep, killing all of the guards on their way to the family.

During the attack on the keep, Hope goes to check on her father, only to witness him summon demons through his body. As she sees this, the townspeople arrive and the lord then reveals himself to be Lucifer. In a storm of hellfire, Lucifer kills everyone in the room except his daughter and the priest. The priest then accuses Hope of being a consort of the devil and has her tried as a witch and then executed; however, Lucifer sends an envoy to offer to take her to hell to live with Nicola in exchange for her painful burning at the stake. She accepts the bargain and is brought into the depths of hell where she learns that the souls of Nicola and her mother are being kept by Lucifer. Escaping from Lucifer, her anger and will begin to transform her into Lady Death (over time) and she eventually starts raising an army to eventually overthrow Lucifer and free the people that she loves.

The musical score and the sound effects for this release are good, the score doesn’t detract from the movie and the sound effects are what they should be. The movie is presented in Dolby surround sound, but doesn’t drift from center channel at more than a handful of occasions during the movie. Voice acting was good for the most part, however, the choice for Cremator’s voice was a little off – the character didn’t match the voice very well, not to the point of distraction, but it was noticeable.

All in all, Lady Death will be a movie that hard-core fans will enjoy more than the casual enthusiast.

- Tazman

(October 16, 2004)

"Tom, you're so deep in the closet, you're finding Christmas presents."

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