Author: Daisuke Hiragawa

Brand: Geneon [Pioneer]

Format: NTSC

Release Date: 25-10-2005

Details: Amazon.ca Gankutsuou, designer-director Mahiro Maeda's adaptation of Alexander Dumas's novel of revenge, shifts the action to a sci-fi future of easy space travel. The series opens with the carnival on the moon (instead of Rome), where Albert de Morcerf and Franz d'Epinay meet the title Count, whom Maeda has reimagined as a cross between a Byronic hero and a Yoshitaka Amano-esque vampire. The designers put elaborate patterns on the characters' hair and clothes, but the patterns don't move with the characters. As a result, Albert, Franz, and the Count often look like disembodied heads floating over a patterned background. The overly detailed settings and cheesy 3-D CG effects add more discordant visual notes. But the overripe imagery can't disguise the limits of the animation or the ineffectual storytelling. The Count of Monte Cristo has been filmed at least five times previously, but Maeda's is the first version to make Dumas's characters uninteresting. (Rated 16 and older: violence, brief nudity, sexual innuendo, alcohol use) --Charles Solomon

UPC: 013023257795

EAN: 0013023257795

Languages: English

Binding: DVD

Item Condition: New