As a Dragon Age fan who has beaten both video games, I'm squarely in the target audience for Dragon Age Redemption. This miniseries, which originally aired on the web, takes place in the world of Dragon Age II. Its primary purpose is to whet your appetite for a $10 downloadable add-on, Mark of the Assassin. I wasn't as geeked about Dragon Age II as the first one--it attempted to lure casual gamers at the expense of its game mechanics. As a result, I never sought out any add-on's. This review of the Dragon Age Redemption DVD was just the excuse I needed to dive in.

Dragon Age Redemption follows the tale of Tallis (Felicia Day), a flirty, elf rogue who swears loyalty to the Qunari. The Qunari promise to restore Tallis' status and rank if she accomplishes her quest. Her task is to hunt down an evil blood mage, Saarebus (Doug Jones), ...Read the entire review

Oh! Edo Rocket is one of those series that a portion of otaku will glorify to the moon and another portion will loathe with every fiber of their being. The show's hyperactive randomness will definitely attract its fair share of fans. If shows like Excel Saga and My Bride is a Mermaid are not your cup of sake, then this show is not likely to win your hard-earned dollar.

Seikichi Tamaya is a young fireworks maker who strives to be the best and stay the best at his profession. One day, Sora, a young, mysterious, blue-haired woman with stars in her eyes, asks Seikichi to build her a rocket that will travel to the moon. If that task was not daunting enough, the story takes place in 19th century Edo, Japan. In a...Read the entire review

Canaan is a modern-day mystery/political thriller with an intriguing premise for superpowers: survivors of a supposedly incurable bioweapon develop special abilities. The series is actually a sequel to a Japanese video game entitled, 428: Fūsa Sareta Shibuya de, which has no English translation. I'm not certain whether playing this game increases the effectiveness of this 13-episode series, which hits a lull after the halfway point that it never recovers from.

When photographer, Maria Osawa, and magazine journalist, Minoru Minorikawa, arrive in Shangai, China to cover an international anti-terrorism conference, they find themselves entangled with a terrorist organization known as Snake--no relation to G.I. Joe's Cobra. On their first night there, in the middle of a street celebration, ...Read the entire review

On the mythical mountain of Akina, a mysterious hoopty of a car rules the harrowing twists and turns of the mountain road. On the downhill, nobody can best this Toyota Trueno 86. It's a decent car, for sure--10 years ago. But somehow, this car passes brand new, tricked out, muscle cars with the greatest of ease. Maybe it's the car. More likely it's the skill of the driver behind the wheel: an unassuming high school student whose only care is not spilling a glass of water while delivering tofu for his father's store.

Initial D: First Stage, Part One is all about racing. More specifically, it's about drifting. If you have seen Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, then you have an idea ...Read the entire review

UFC Ultimate Submissions highlights what makes ground fighting so devastating and exciting. Fighters get into an advantageous position, bend a limb, and exert unimaginable pain upon their opponents. Victims of a submission face two choices: tap and live to fight another day or endure the agony of having your opponent snap your limb in half. The latter seldom occurs, but some of those rare non-taps are captured in this set--and they are gruesome. UFC Ultimate Submissions is a Las Vegas, all-you-can-eat buffet of Triangle Chokes, Rear-Naked Chokes, Arm Bars, Knee Bars, Omoplata's and Americana's. There's even a ridiculous double submission/choke move that has to be seen to be believed.

UFC play-by-play announcer, Mike Goldberg, hosts the main feature. There are tap-out clips from about 30 differe...Read the entire review

From Kenji Kamiyama, the director of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, comes Eden of the East, a thought-provoking mystery with a hint of romance. Be prepared to analyze everything you see as you immerse yourself in the world of this refreshingly complex, anime tale of intrigue.

Saki Morimi is a young, Japanese woman in her final year of college. For her graduation trip, she travels to the United States to see Washington D.C. Standing just outside the White House gates, she throws a coin onto the grounds which creates a stir amongst the guards. Some police immediately detain and question Saki until a strange, naked, Japanese man shows up and deflects the guards' attention. After she makes her escape, she follows the man to his apartment and where she discovers that his name is Akira Taki...Read the entire review

When FOX began hyping Human Target in early 2010, I had low expectations. The promos exhibited some pretty sweet action sequences, but the campy title of the show caused me to write it off as skippable, mid-season cancel fodder. Hearing the news that the series was based on a DC Comics character, however, evoked the fanboy in me and I immediately set the DVR to give it a shot. I was surprised to discover a weekly treat that was one of the best new series to debut on network television last year.

Christopher Chance (Mark Valley, Boston Legal), is a bodyguard for hire. His clients come to him as a last resort because their lives are in serious danger and they have no other alternatives. Chance's mysterious past is only partially revealed as the season progresses--much of it in the seas...Read the entire review

Lionsgate must truly believe that American audiences will blindly adore any foreign martial arts release, just so long as the fight action never ceases until the credits roll. Kung-Fu Master tests that theory by splicing together fight scenes from a Chinese martial arts television series, sprinkling in a few minutes of plot, and slapping a generic title in epic-looking font on the front of the DVD case.

Tan Zong, played by veteran martial arts actor Yuen Baio, is but a humble, kung-fu master, Shaolin monk. His skills have unfortunately attracted the attention of the Grand Commandant who wants Tan Zong to train his army. As a monk, he must detach himself from worldly affairs and decline the offer. As the monk makes his way to speak with the Grand Commandant, he is forced into a fight at every turn.

Dragon Ball Z Kai: Season One Part 2 continues the great experiment of removing all the filler from the bloated 291 episode original series. As a longtime anime fan, I avoided Dragon Ball Z like the plague for years, assuming it was a juvenile waste of time. The remix, however, proves that Dragon Ball Z is oozing with old school awesomeness and is accessible for any fan of action-based anime.

The epic battle between Goku and Vegeta picks up right where it left off in the first set. Toe-to-toe, Vegeta is unable to overcome Goku's might, so he resorts to the last ability in his bag of tricks--he transforms into a Great Ape, which amplifies his power tenfold. In this new form, Vegeta obliterates Goku, who misses on ...Read the entire review

For millions of Americans, the Fall season means one thing: football season, baby! With that comes fantasy football, which has seen an explosion in popularity over the past decade thanks to ingenious, user-friendly websites to manage the leagues. Once the realm of statistics geeks and number crunchers, Joe Sixpack can now easily drag and drop his way to imaginary glory each week during the NFL season. Fantasy football makes all NFL games take on life-or-death importance, with fantasy team owners sweating out each of their player's games. Everybody is a self-proclaimed genius and the competition is fierce, which leads to the true draw of fantasy football: the smack talk.

The League centers around a group of longtime buddies who have an ongoing fantasy football league that they live and breathe. Their l...Read the entire review

El Hazard has always been Tenchi's less popular, but still awesome little cousin. Both series were produced by AIC and were created, in part, by Hiroki Hayashi. The stories are very different but share the same harem-style theme featuring similar looking lead characters surrounded by an assortment of eligible, lovely, hypercolor haired bachelorettes. Although El Hazard's story and cast were every bit as good as Tenchi, if not better, it never achieved the success and notoriety of Tenchi.

El Hazard: The Wanderers originally aired in 1995 and is a heavily revised, television version of the classic OVA series, The Magnificent World. Anime fans should instantly have visions of Tenchi's revisionist series dancing in their heads.

Makoto, Nanam...Read the entire review

America: The Story of Us is a bird's eye, American Exceptionalist view of our country's history. This series pushes the idea that Americans share a collective culture, born from colonialism and forged from pioneering, that makes our society unique among all countries. There is a significant amount of patriotic cheerleading, but the documentary does not gloss over shameful events such as slavery, segregation, and stealing a land from the Native Americans.

America: The Story of Us covers about 400 years worth of history in 12 episodes and includes events spanning from original Jamestown and Plymouth Rock settlements to the election of Barack Obama. It hits on the usual suspects such as the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Great Depression and World War II, but where it really shines is on ot...Read the entire review

Do you need something to lighten your mood? Look no further than My Bride is a Mermaid. This maniacal series and its joke-a-minute script pulls no punches when parodying other anime series. While some of these jokes fall flat or are perhaps lost in translation, many of them elicit a chuckle, and a few are downright hysterical.

The episodes in My Bride is a Mermaid Part 2 are, mostly, self-contained stories that involve large and ever growing cast of characters. To recap the events of the first 13 episodes: Nagasumi Michishio is a middle school student on summer vacation who happened to one day find himself drowning in the middle of Seto Bay. Sun Seto, a young mermaid, saves the day and rescues Nagasumi from a mo...Read the entire review

When we last left Casshern Sins, the main story was developing an eventual showdown between Casshern and the two robots created alongside him, Dio and Leda, who want to rule the world. While the series was one of the most amazing looking series I have ever seen, unfortunately, the story was a meandering, unfocused, melodramatic stroll through a dying robot-ruled world. The characters spent an excessive amount of time thinking about how much they hate life, which made for a story that was itself, easy to hate. The second half of Casshern Sins stays much more focused on the main story. While it still dabbles in the fluffy nonsense and tangents that marred the first half, this final set of episodes comes much closer to achieving the ambitious ...Read the entire review

Feeling burned out on the whole vampire craze? If the idea of yet another show about vampires causes your eyes to roll to the back of your head and make you cry, "No...more...vampires," then Black Blood Brothers is probably not good enough to sway your interests. Insatiable fans of the genre, however, will love sinking their teeth into this short, 12-episode series based off the light novels by Kōhei Azano.

Jiro Mochizuku is an old blood vampire, a black blood, who wields great powers like stopping bullets cold, Matrix-style. He also dresses like Orko from He-Man and is fiercely protective ...Read the entire review

Casshern Sins is a complete reimagining of the old anime series Neo Human Casshern. Beyond the main characters, however, Casshern Sins bears little resemblance to the nearly 40-year-old original. Madhouse, the animation studio behind titles such as Perfect Blue, Chobits, and Trigun, has put together a stylized visual treat. Unfortunately, the subpar story and uneven pacing hinder what could have been an instant classic.

Casshern Sins Part 1 contains the first half of the 24 episode series. The story takes place in a desolate world that is crumbling into ruin. Robots rule the world, but where they were once thought to be immortal, they are now falling apart and are struggling to hold onto...Read the entire review

In my review of the first Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood boxset, I said that the show promises to be great. The second collection takes the ball handed off by the first and runs away with it. This set does not disappoint and lays down many more layers to an already deep and fascinating storyline. Kick back, grab some Pocky, pop open an ice-cold bottle of Ramune, and prepare yourself for anime awesomeness.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood follows the journey of Edward and Alphonse Elric to restore parts their bodies. In an attempt to use alchemy to bring back their mother from the dead, Edward lost his arm and leg and Alphonse lost his entire body--his soul is now fused to a suit of armor. Edward is now a state alchem...Read the entire review

The Claim: on average our grandparents and great-grandparents had smaller waists and weighted significantly less. Could it be that even with all our modern exercise and nutritional science, we have overlooked something from yesteryear's simple principles of dieting? The Diets That Time Forgot is a six episode miniseries that originally aired on British television. It is presented as a little experiment to see what would happen if you put nine modern day, overweight people on early 20th century diets and exercise routines.

Sir Roy Strong serves as the host of the show and acts as the director of the Institute of Physical Culture--a fictitious fat camp of sorts where people go to be immersed in early 20th century British diet, exercise, and culture. The contestants consist of three males and six females...Read the entire review

Eyeshield 21 is a surprising gem of a sports anime series. This second set of 13 episodes continues the Deimon High Devil Bats' journey to win the Christmas Bowl. The first volume introduced Sena as Eyeshield 21, a miniscule and mysterious runningback with sprinter-like speed and great moves. It also established the core players of the team as well as several rival opponents. In this volume, the Devil Bats continue to gain credibility as a football team and an American rival player is added to Eyeshield 21's rogues gallery.

With the addition of great skill players such as Eyeshield 21 and Monta, the Deimon High Devil Bats have suddenly established themselves amongst the upper echelon of Japanese high school football teams. With the...Read the entire review

It has been over 40 years since the Beatles' infamous break-up. They remain popular as evidenced by the recently re-released albums, a video game, and even a Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas in their honor. They have been the subject of countless documentaries and books. Parting Ways: The Beatles is a forgettable and poorly produced documentary that does nothing to stand above the crowd. In fact, it gets trampled by the multitude of superior documentaries available.

Parting Ways covers the split of the Fab Four and their lives that followed. The documentary begins with perhaps the most famous Beatle, the late John Lennon. It tells the story of how he began pursuing non-Beatles interests in the Plastic Ono Band with Yoko Ono and Eric Clapton among others. It then quickly discusses how John Lennon ...Read the entire review

Master of Martial Hearts is the epitome of fan service. In anime, the term "fan service" means gratuitous sexual content that doesn't fit in with the storyline. I have to define the term because it will appear a lot in this review. This DVD release includes the entire five episode OVA release on one disc.

If frontal nudity in cartoons offends you in any way, then you will hate this series. Personally, I have no issues with fan service as long as there is more to the actual show than just generous bouncing and sneak peeks. Unfortunately, Master of Martial Hearts is not good, even by fan service standards.

The two main characters, Aya and Natsume, are walking along one day, minding their own business, when they happen upon a battle between an airline stewardess and a priestess. Aya...Read the entire review

Who isn't familiar with the Brothers Grimm's fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel, where the two children are lured into a cannibal witch's gingerbread house? In 2007, Korean film director, Yim Pil-Sung, released his modern and twisted take on the classic tale that contains neither the title characters nor a cannibal witch. Instead, Yim Pil-Sung cherry picked several elements from the traditional story and created an original, and sinister, modern fantasy.

Eun-Soo (Jeong-myeong Cheon) is, at first glance, a disinterested business-man just trying to get through life. He's driving in his car down a wet, country road while on a cell phone talking to his pregnant girlfriend. She is supposed to go to the hospital and wants Eun-soo...Read the entire review

I love anime series that feature a loser guy that somehow finds himself surrounded with hot ladies. These shows are commonly referred to as harem anime. Tenchi Muyo, Love Hina, and Ai Yori Aoshi highlight this crowded and popular subgenre of anime. My Bride is a Mermaid seems to fit best in this category, but it is difficult to completely classify a show that is a random jumble of slapstick comedy, parodies, and jokes held together by a bizarre storyline involving a middle school boy trying to marry into a family of gangster mermaids. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Originally appearing as the ongoing manga series, Seto no Hanayome, My Bride is a Mermaid makes its DVD debut in a 2-disc boxset that contains the first half of the 26 episode anime series.

Nagasumi Mich...Read the entire review

X began as a manga series produced by CLAMP from 1992 to 2003. Its manga storyline was never completed, but nonetheless spawned a movie and a 24 episode anime series that originally aired in 2001. FUNimation's release of X: The Complete Series contains the anime series along with a one episode OVA in a four-disc boxset.

The end of the world is nigh. The fate of the Earth rests in the hands of Kamui Shiro. He is faced with the choice of joining either the Dragons of Heaven, who are sworn to protect mankind, or the Dragons of Earth, who seek revolution by destroying the human menace that plagues the planet. Kamui left Tokyo during his childhood, but not before establishing a lifelong friendship with Fuma and his sister, Kotori. He has now returned to Tokyo, where the apocalypse will soon take pla...Read the entire review

Did you ever take Rocks For Jocks in school hoping for an easy physical sciences credit, but instead discovered an exciting topic filled with wonders and amazement? Yeah, me neither. However, if The History Channel has anything to say about it, geology is brimming with awesomeness and worthy of a two season series.

How the Earth Was Made: Season 2 is a 4 disc set containing the following 13 episodes:

• Grand Canyon
• Vesuvius
• Birth of the Earth
• Sahara
• Yosemite
• The Rockies
• Ring of Fire
• Everest
• Death Valley
• Mt. St. Helens
• Earth's Deadliest Eruption
• America's Ice Age
• America's Gold
...Read the entire review
]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/43327 Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:06:32 UTC Recommended



Few, if any, mixed martial arts fighters have achieved the mass market success of Quenton "Rampage" Jackson, who recently took Mr. T's place in the movie remake of the A-Team. Outside of being a phenomenal fighter, Rampage is both the most menacing looking fighter and one of the biggest personalities in all MMA. From the early 2000's until the present day, Rampage has fought the best that his weight class has to offer and has mauled some of the top names in the sport including Chuck Liddell, Dan Henderson, and Wanderlei Silva.

UFC: Rampage Greatest Hits is a collection of ten fights that span most of Quenton Jackson's career. No footage is shown from his pre-PRIDE matchups. The first five fights are from his days as a PRIDE fighter in Japan. The set begins in late 2001 with Rampage Jackson fighting Yu...Read the entire review

]]>