Debiruman

after seeing the first two devil man anime on video some time ago, i was pleasantly surprised to find a real-life version of it on DVD. but after watching the first 10 minutes it became abundantly clear that this movie couldn't live up to the standard of the original series.

while the special effects didn't suck that much (but sometimes reminding of a beat em up on your average console) the rest of the move was brain-imploringly bad. even with the knowledge from the original series this movie just makes no sense. not at all. the single scenes are barely connected, in parts even contradicting each other. the dialogue of the German version (which i watched) was painstakingly bad and sometimes even made you laugh out loud ("ich bin schliesslich Satan!") , the actors (if they even are actors, that is) mostly manage to keep the same expression throughout the entire movie. the fights aren't that bad, but mostly over after like 5 seconds and cant redeem the rest of the movie at all.

conclusion: "normal" viewers shouldn't touch this movie with a ten foot pole, even fans of the original series should have problems understanding it, not even counting in the various logical errors in the story as the movie tells it. i want that 90min of my life back.

I have been a fan of Devilman since I first saw the cartoon when I was 3. Later years, I got my hands on more and more stuff, like the bilingual mangas, the complete anime series, and the 2 amazing volumes of the OVA.(The bootleg and the hilarious English dubs). I have a lot of the action figures and other forms of collectibles. So....I AM A HUGE FAN of Devilman.

Than I saw the trailer for this movie....my god I was so excited...I even excused the fact that Siren wasn't a naked demon lady with wings on her head...

When I got the chance, I purchased a copy from China through ebay.

I watched it.....sigh*....It was awful...The actors were horrible, they changed around the plots and story and interactions. They never explained or even attempted to fill the GAPING plot holes.

SO...being such a big fan of Devilman, I am choosing to officially disassociate this movie completely.

Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about the original series, and watched this movie only because the trailer was really cool. Thus, I went into it not knowing what to expect. I guess going in blind is an advantage in some cases. I actually liked this movie pretty well, though I didn't always understand who everyone was and what was going on. In some ways, this reminded me of a Romero zombie movie, and not only because it's kinda cheesy and involves evil dead things that attack people. It seemed to contain similar themes of social commentary, in this case mostly about man's cruelty and inhumanity towards other man, and the way fear can spark violence and paranoia. Based on that impression of the movie, the special-effects fight scenes seemed out of place, to me, almost like a distraction. I had the feeling the whole time I might understand more of what was going on had I been a fan of the original, but since they're said to be completely different, I doubt it would've helped much. As weird as it sounds, I'd have to suggest not seeing the original before this. It seems it's an easier movie to like that way.

Be warned: this film is a failure on every imaginable level: inept direction / laughably unconvincing special effects / atrocious, incoherent dialog / gross miscasting of virtually every important character (the film is peopled with Japanese pop stars and boy bad idols, none of whom can act) / a heavy-handed and utterly uninvolving narrative whose sorrowful attempts at social commentary come across as insultingly banal. Such a wasted opportunity too, given the wealth of the source material; DevilMan is easily one of the most iconic manga/anime characters in the history of the medium, and there is simply no excuse for the disaster this adaptation turned out to be. Don't let the advertisements fool you - the only proper way to appreciate a film like this is to receive it purely as camp, but when a film is this genuinely bad, even that'll prove a stretch.

If you admire the animated Devil Man, do yourself a favor,SKIP THIS ONE! I am a fairly tenacious Devil Man enthusiast. I have a few mangas, the TV- Series box, Devil Man OVA Collection and Amon: Devil Man Apocalypse. The animation runs rings around the live-action movie. I had high hopes for this. I had it set in my mind that the quality of this movie would be on par with the live-action treatment of Casshern but it most definitely was not. Here's where the movie fails: flat acting, stiff computer animation, bad make-up and a giant lag in the middle of the movie. Put it this way, I had the Swine Flu and that was allot more fun than Devil Man: Live Action. I hope Go Nagai (Devil Man's creator) finds those responsible for this abomination and urinates all over their mothers. The ONLY saving grace of this movie is that Devil Man model looks pretty cool.