“Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl” is one big bloody mess… literally”.
Images courtesy of © 2010 FUNimation Entertainment. All Rights Reserved.
DVD TITLE: Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (Kyûketsuki Shôjo tai Shôjo Furanken)
FILM RELEASE DATE: 2009
DURATION: 90 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: 16:9, Dolby Digital, Japanese Stereo, English 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound, English Subtitles
COMPANY: Eleven Arts/FUNimation Entertainment
RATED: TV MA
RELEASE DATE: October 19, 2010
Based on the manga “Kyuketsuki Shojo tai Shojo Furanken” by Shungiku Uchida
Directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura, Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Screenplay by Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Executive Producer: Shuji Omata
Producer: Masatsugu Asahi, Jun Nakajima
Associate Producer: Ruka Tanaka
Music by Kou Nakagawa
Cinematography by Shu G. Momose
Edited by Yoshihiro Nishimura
Production Design by Nori Fukuda
Starring:
Yukie Kawamura as Monami/Vampire Girl
Takumi Saito as Jyugon Mizushima
Elly Otoguro as Keiko/Frankenstein Girl
Sayaka Kametani as Midori
Jiji Bu as Igor
Eihi Shiina as Monami’s Mother
Kanji Tsuda as Kenji Furano
Yukihide Benny as St. Francis Xavier
Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl is the terrifying story of two classic monsters re-imagined as super hot – and extremely lethal – Japanese school girls. Gore rules supreme in this blood-cake cavalcade of carnage, and aficionados of psychedelic blood-filled chocolates, mad scientist principals, sumo wrestlers from hell, and sex-crazed school nurses are guaranteed to lose their heads over this old-school splatter-fest.
“Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl” is your classic love story (not really). Girl falls in love with boy. Vampire Girl also falls in love with boy. Girl dies trying to protect (?) boy from Vampire Girl. Girl comes back as Frankenstein Girl thanks to her father being a mad scientist and tries to get boy back from Vampire Girl… and then all hell breaks loose. Meanwhile, boy is just stuck in the middle of this mess…
Monami Arukado (played by Yukie Kawamura) is a transfer student that just happens to be a vampire. Nobody ever really paid any attention to her and actually, most people have a habit of forgetting she’s even there. Keiko Furano (played by Elly Otoguro) is the princess of the school who’s father is also the vice principal. She’s used to getting what she wants, including her boyfriend Jyugon Mizushima (played by Takumi Saito). However, Jyugon really never agreed to this relationship. One day, Monami approaches Jyugon and asks him to take the chocolate she made for him. Jyugon thinks nothing of this and takes the chocolate. He bites into the chocolate and realizes there’s something weird inside the chocolate… blood. It happens to be Monami’s blood, meaning he just got turned into a vampire. Thus begins the weirdest love triangle you will ever see.
Keiko obviously doesn’t like the fact that Monami is getting close to Jyugon and eventually finds out the fact that Monami is a vampire. She attempts to protect Jyugon from Monami… on the roof of the school and that doesn’t end so well. Luckily for her (?), her father is not only the vice principal, but also happens to be a mad scientist using students for his experiments (yes, really…). He is able to save (?) her and turns her into Frankenstein Girl. So begins the battle between Vampire Girl and Frankenstein Girl for their true love…
“Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl” is brought to you by the same people who brought you “Tokyo Gore Police” (directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura). Bloody, quirky, and absolutely insane: “Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl” is definitely something else…
VIDEO:
“Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl” is presented in 16:9.
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl” is presented in Dolby Digital. The English dub is presented in 5.1 Dolby Surround while the Japanese track is presented in Japanese stereo.
Subtitles are in English.
The English dubbing is actually pretty well acted out… however, it’s rather hard to time when the mouths move and sync the English words with the original Japanese dialogue… so at times it looks like any other Asian movie dubbed over into English. If you don’t mind this and don’t want to read subtitles, then the dub is decent. If you prefer to just stick with the original Japanese, the subtitles are very well done.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl” comes with the following special features:
- Opening Day Stage Greetings– (20:38) Greetings from the directors as well as actresses Yukie Kawamura and Elly Otoguro as well as a Q&A from opening day.
- Making of Video Part 1– (14:17) Behind the scenes footage of the film part 1.
- Making of Video Part 2– (50:00) Behind the scenes footage of the film part 2.
- Original Trailer– (1:12) The original trailer for “Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl”.
“Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl” is one big bloody mess. Literally. However, it can be a humorous big bloody mess… or it could just be insulting, it depends on what kind of person you are. With that, if you don’t like the sight of blood (despite it being obviously fake), this movie is not for you. If you don’t mind the sight of blood and guts and enjoy some dark humor, you may enjoy this film. However, the humor is really, really dark and some of the stuff in this film is bound to offend viewers. I myself don’t mind blood and guts and I enjoy dark humor… but this film may have been a bit much for me, and in a way, it may not have been enough.
Other than the amount of violence and fake blood in this film, there is a Wrist Cutters’ club as well as a Ganguro club… The Wrist Cutters’ club is self explanatory and I don’t think I need to elaborate on how disturbing that is… (at least I hope I don’t) Also the leader of the Ganguro club happens to wear an afro wig and has prosthetics on her face to make her lips, nose, and cheekbones bigger… Pretty much this movie has at least one thing that will offend almost everyone. Not much nudity in this film, but there’s plenty of other offensive material. In general there’s plenty of stuff in this film that will make you think WTF.
The special effects in this film look ridiculous, but adds flavor to the kind of movie this is. The special effects and CG pretty much look like they are from a B movie and well… this pretty much is a B movie. This movie isn’t a serious movie so cheesy effects were the way to go. The acting itself isn’t bad… I mean there are actual professional actors in this film. It’s not completely a film with just gravure idols and B actors. The best way I can describe this film is that it’s a lot like the Troma Entertainment movies like the “Toxic Avenger” series, but Japanese. So if you enjoy those movies, you’ll enjoy this film.
With everything I’ve said so far, this should be obvious but this film is definitely not for children.
As I said, I do enjoy dark comedies so I could enjoy some of the humor of this film. The whole movie is ridiculous, and it’s meant to be… so I can appreciate that. I mean… the vice principal is a mad scientist dressed up in full Kabuki makeup. Someone has to appreciate that.
I know I didn’t have very nice things to say about this film, but seriously this movie is for a very select audience, just like the Troma pictures are. Going back to my statement earlier about this film, I personally think it had just too much blood, gore and offensive material and well… not much of anything else. For what the movie is, I think it’s an alright movie. I know there will be people who enjoy this movie a lot more than I did. Just be warned of what you’re about to watch. If you like Troma pictures, or movies with tons of fake guts and blood as well as offensive humor, you’ll enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy any of that, you might want to let this one pass.
