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Twilight of the Dark Master Director: Akiyuki Shinbo Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Animated Audience Rating: Unrated Running Time: 50 minutes Studio: Urban Vision Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2001-06-12 Buy from Amazon

From Amazon.com Based on the manga by Saki Okuse, Twilight of the Dark Master is a brief--less than 45 minutes--feature that is long on static imagery but rather short on storytelling. Although the opening narration tells of the Great Mother creating demons and guardians, humans are transformed into demons through drugs and bioengineering onscreen. As he's celebrating his engagement, Eiji, a pharmaceutical researcher, metamorphoses into a monster resembling Ray Harryhausen's Cyclops in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Eiji goes on a rampage until he's captured by the eerie brother-sister team of Chen and Huang Long, who take him to a sex club and feed him prostitutes. Eiji is part of an experiment conducted by Mr. Takamiya, the master demon. Opposing the forces of evil is Guardian and "fire manipulator" Tsunami Shijyo. Tsunami and Takamiya meet in a duel that ends before it really begins. Director Akiyuki Shimbo favors still images with the action occurring on the soundtrack, producing a striking but static feature that resembles a manga shot panel by panel, rather than a conventional animated film. Not rated ("for mature audiences"); suitable for ages 18 and up for nudity, violence, violence against women, suggestions of rape, and incest. --Charles Solomon From Description Powerful, grotesque Demons and beautiful, noble Guardians have battled for Earth - the everlasting gift of the one great Mother, creator of all life. Ages ago, the arrogant Demons enslaved humans, while the Guardians fought for human freedom. A deep hatred eternally burns between Demon and Guardian; the Guardians know the Demons thirst for blood and power would destroy humanity and the world itself. Eons later: Neo-Shinjuku, 2089 - few Demons or Guardians remain to continue their epic war. Humans rule the Earth, with no real memory of the monstrous Demons or angelic Guardians. Yet, deep within the dark underworld of the city, the supreme Demon is still alive and plotting, once again, to overtake mankind. Only one Guardian is left to do battle, and the fate of the human race hangs in the balance. Twilight of the Dark Master's elaborate story will transport you to another world of sleek design, lavish imagery, exotic characters and an exhilarating spiral of events.

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 35 Average rating: 3.5 "A character and plot driven" Twlight is an extremly well draw anime. It features great artwork and scenary (very reminscent of Blade Runner). Twlight does well with character development and plot advancement, even though it clocks in at only 53 mins. All in all a good solid anime. "Uh...uh...uh...um...uh...uh...uh..." When I first saw this, I think I was thinking the exact same thing that every one else was once the 53 minute mark went by: ...What? So I popped it in a second time to see if I could understand better. OK, OK, yes, yes, there's this Tsunami guy, (I think that's his name) and some evil demon running an organization, yeah, and there's this guy who got turned into a monster and his girlfriend is caught in the middle and the 53 minutes are up... ...What? Let's try this a third time. All right, so there are these two vampire or something siblings and one of them might kind of like Tsunami...or wait, they like each other. Huh? And there's this scientist and his assistant for about two minutes and then they get killed...and the 53 minutes are up... ...What? All right, fourth time's a charm. There's a machine-woman orgie, followed by two topless hookers hugging and then getting killed. ...What? Try as I might, I don't understand what the heck is going on. Sure, it has a nice style to it. Sure, there are a lot of cool characters, like Tsunami. But, ultimately, you got something that probably should have been two hours scrunched into 53 minutes. Imagine taking "Akira" and pinching it into a half-hour movie. It just don't work that way folks. It is a slightly entertaining 53 minute excursion, but I'd rent before buying, because you'll find yourself totally lost amidst the violence and random character deaths. However, I did learn one thing from this film, as quoted by the hero himself, "You know those drugs will kill you." Right on, Tsunami. Knowing is half the battle. "i pray this is a condensed version of an upcoming series" this movie had multitudes of potential it had a great sotry and visually was excellent, but it felt rushed, and i feel that took alot from it. similar to "X" where the movie was basically a summary of the series and didnt go at all in depth to the charicters involved, but in "X" the series took the time to get to know the charicters and let everything sink in and basically absorb you into the series if this is turned into a series it could easily be a sleeper favorite, but as far as the movie itself goes, i felt like i was watching a preview for a much more involved project. it had everything i find good in an anime, deep story, a bit of tragedy, visualy appealing and alot of explosions. but i feel it was rushed in the delivery and the "finale" had little to no impact. if there had been some background and charicter focus the ending would have had more of an effect. as i said an excellent anime... if it were designed to be the prieview of a great series "A good standard for anime" A little on the short side BUT to say this movie was bad is being ultra picky .It had great gorey bloody scenes brought to you by the evil ones .The movie gore and fighting was sacrificed for sake of story line but that isn't a bad thing .I agree that this movie with some added work from the creaters could have put this flick among the top .Great animation work ,story work ,vocals as well . "Im glad I didn't buy it..." A while back I rented Twilight of the dark master and like I said above, Im glad I didn't buy it. The story was really interesting but if you don't pay close attention it will go way over your head. Trying to put that big plot in a 50 min. movie would be hard I can imagine. I saw the preview on Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust and I was like WOW, but when I watched that WOW turned into a AW. Not that much blood, gore, fighting, etc. not saying that it was bad for not having that kind of stuff, but the preview is very misleading. The HUGE thing that I liked about Twilight Of The Dark Master is that the artwork is GREAT. I mean this artwork is truly one of the best seen. It even shows you how the character designer drew the cover art which looked like it had taken him at least an hour(3x or 4x fastforward). I wouldn't recommend it if you like action but if your a plot throb that can keep up with a constant and confusing storyline or you like anime because of the artwork, I would suggest renting before you buy it.