Bruce Von Stiers
A few years back there was an intense graphic novel that was turned into a
film. The lead character was a soldier that had been condemned and banished
from the planet. His name was Geist. The folks at US Manga
have put together this film and it’s sequel in a collector’s edition
DVD set. They call this set Collector’s
Series M.D. Geist Director’s Cut / Death Force. It
has blood, gore and nudity; all of the elements that make a good graphic novel
come to life.
It seems that there is a soldier named Giest who has been imprisoned in a space station as he was deemed to dangerous to be left on Earth. The M.D. in his name means Most Dangerous from being part of a special unit of soldiers.
In the first film, which is called the Director’s Cut, Geist comes back to Earth and is fighting it out with some of the lowlifes there. He hooks up with a chick named Vaiya, who peddles his services out to the new military government. They have one final mission that will take the talents of a soldier like Geist.
The mission is
to stop a devastating Death Force to be unleashed upon the Earth. Other forces
will try and stop him from getting to the shut down switch. But Geist has his
own ideas on how things should be handled. He ends up setting things in motion
instead of stopping them.
In the second film, Death Force, Earth has been overrun by giant metallic bugs that kill people and use their bodies for food. The new hero of the Earth is a MD named Krauser. He is hooked up with Vaiya, who has now has no memory of what transpired in the past with the Death Force and Geist. The Death Force bugs are rapidly reproducing but can only get up to 9,999 units. Only just enough to wipe out the remaining human population of Earth.
Krauser has his own agenda as does the people he’s working for. And Geist won’t be taking this whole thing sitting down. He finds out what is going on and battles it out with Krauser.
The DVD disc has several extras. There is an Alternate Angle graphic novel and some storyboards. A music video was included along with some information about a 1995 Harley Fat Boy that was used to promote the films.
There is a second DVD disc that is in the set. It is called The World of Koichi Ohata. There are concept drawings and storyboards from Genocyber, another hit animation from Ohata. He is the one who had the story and mechanical design for M.D. Geist. The disc has an interview with Ohata and a retrospective of him and his work. There are also a few extras for M.D. Geist that wasn’t on the first disc.
The English Language cast featured Jason Beck as Geist and Joan Baker as Vaiya. Other voice actors included Josh Hollywood as Krauser and Vincent Bagnall as the Major.
This Collector’s Series was produced by John O’Connell for Central Park Media and Masaharu Takayama for Nippon Columbia Co.
Collector’s Series M.D. Geist Director’s Cut / Death Force was long on violence and gore. It was short on substance. I would have liked to see more of a plot and less excessive violence. Vaiya seemed to be put in the film for the T & A element. She sure seems to bare her breasts quite a bit. This adds to the drool factor and not much else. Yanking heads off of people and having them displayed on the screen may appeal to some people, but once or twice is enough. I don’t need to see that happen upteen times.
If you are heavy into post apocalyptic military storylines and blood, gore and animated naked women, then this is a title that you should check out.
If you want more information about this title, check out www.centralparkmedia.com or www.cpmmanga.com.
© 2002 Bruce E. Von Stiers
BVS Reviews