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Kindred the Embraced - The Complete Vampire Collection

Kindred the Embraced - The Complete Vampire Collection

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bram Stoker meets Mario Puzo!
Review: This is definitely a series which any true gothic, vampire mythos afficionado would love! I bought the VHS set of this series from AMAZON, and needless to say I was truly impressed! It was everything I expected it to be, albeit for some rather dragging moments where more action would have been in order (e.g. the pilot). Still, this set is obviously well worth the price, since it contains all aired episodes plus a bonus one.

Kindred: The Embraced is based on the Vampire: The Masquerade rpg. The late Mark Frankel steals the show as the charismatic Julian Luna, San Francisco's vampire Prince of the City - cool clothes, too! The rival vampire gang Bruja is headed by the vicious Eddie Fiore, played by Brian Thompson (who reprises his vampire role in shows such as Fright Night II and Buffy!). A somewhat irritating and ultimately predictable role is played by C. Thomas Howell as detective Frank Kohanek.

As stated earlier, the series does have its dull moments, but I think the premise and overall story is very original and fascinating, which primarily explains the 5 stars. As I said in my original review of the VHS, other vampire-themed shows such as Buffy, Forever Knight and Dark Shadows pale in comparison. I hope they eventually revive this series; I think its cult following is sufficiently large enough to justify it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Every vampire lover needs to own this!
Review: This is a fantastic 3-VHS collection of the T.V. series. A must-own for the true vampire lover. It is inventive, sexy, thrilling, and well written. You get involved with the vampire gangs and cheer them all. It's what you might expect a rich, upper-class gang leader and his clansmen to be. There is conflict, friendship, kinship, love, compassion, hate and war all wrapped up in a present-tense, now-a-days version of how vampires would be today. You'll love it!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: K:TE vs. V:TM
Review: When this show aired back in 1996, there were three types of people who watched it. There were the people who had no knowledge of the role-playing game and just watched the show for the show, there were the people who dabbled in the rpg and had that much more of a deeper understanding of what was going on, then there were your hardcore game geeks(such as myself) sitting on their couches with their checklists saying "OK, that's wrong, and that's wrong, and that's wrong, and that's wrong...." You get my point. If you're expecting something exactly true to the rpg in this show, you're not going to get it. First of all, only 5 clans were covered, there are 13 in the game. Second of all, the Brujah are NOT Armani suit-wearing mafioso types as portrayed in the show, rather they are your clad-in-leather, punk rock street rabble. The Nosferatu wasn't ugly enough, and the disciplines they were using didn't fit their clans much at all. I'm sorry, I have a really hard time buying a Toreador ancilla with four dots in protean (she could turn into a wolf). Now, that being said, lest you think I didn't like this show, I actually did. All of the above complaints aside, It was really compelling drama for the short amount of time it lasted. I would highly recommend it for entertainment value, if not source material.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A cool concept
Review: I can't understand why there are so many Vampire fans that hate Kindred. I love Vampires and I think Kindred portrays them very well. I read a lot of bad reviews before I bought this DVD so I was expecting it to be lousy. To my surprise it was very very good. The DVD collects all eight episodes of the short-lived series. The series tells the story of five different Vampire clans in San Francisco. The clans battle one another for power like mobs. They are united by Julian (the much missed Mark Frankel) the "prince" of all of the clans. Julian is faced with the task of uniting the clans in a truce over the course of the eight episodes. As the series moves forward the Clans attempts at peace are threatened more and more by the Brujah clan and its thug leader Eddie Fiori (Brian Thompson from "Buffy" and the X-Files). As the series draws to a close the Clans have a final battle with Fiori and his thugs in "The Rise and Fall of Eddie Fiori" and many issues are resolved.

Kindred the Embraced is really great because it is the first show to really have mafia clan Vampires. I think the concept of Vampire Clans fighting a mafia-like war is really great. It pputs a new twist on the Vampire mythology and it makes the show really cool. I really can't understand why people didn't like the show more. If you love Vampires you should buy this DVD. It is really great. I think they should re-release it in a couple of years with all kinds of extra features. I also think they should put it back on TV. We really need a cool Vampire show since Buffy is really becoming lousy.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Middling Camp + Vampires = Forgettable Fun
Review: A middle-of-the-road boddice-ripper soap opera, "Kindred: the Embraced" is very loosely based on the roleplaying game "Vampire: the Masquerade." Take a moody horror setting, mix in the supernatural and have Aaron Spelling bake it in his blondes-and-California oven, and this is what you get. While fun for RPG fans to make fun of, and of mild interest to soap aficionados, the show manages neither the horror nor melodrama particularly well. There are some good performances by a stable of "Hey It's That Guy/Gal" actors you'll recognize from a dozen other supernatural melodramas, but the writing is ham-fisted and the camp isn't high enough to pull the rest of this show behind it.

This is no "Ultraviolet," which is simply the best vampire fiction put to film. I own "Kindred: the Embraced," and love it, but it's only seriously recommended for the vampire or RPG completist.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Middling Camp + Vampires = Forgettable Fun
Review: A middle-of-the-road boddice-ripper soap opera, "Kindred: the Embraced" is very loosely based on the roleplaying game "Vampire: the Masquerade." Take a moody horror setting, mix in the supernatural and have Aaron Spelling bake it in his blondes-and-California oven, and this is what you get. While fun for RPG fans to make fun of, and of mild interest to soap aficionados, the show manages neither the horror nor melodrama particularly well. There are some good performances by a stable of "Hey It's That Guy/Gal" actors you'll recognize from a dozen other supernatural melodramas, but the writing is ham-fisted and the camp isn't high enough to pull the rest of this show behind it.

This is no "Ultraviolet," which is simply the best vampire fiction put to film. I own "Kindred: the Embraced," and love it, but it's only seriously recommended for the vampire or RPG completist.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: are you all nuts?
Review: i couldn't believe it.

for about six years now, i have been a huge fan of the game. i own most of the books and novels associated with every white wolf game.

i came upon this dvd set having neverh heard of it before, and read every one of these reviews which all rave at the wonderful adaptation from book to screen.

and now i have to ask what you all were thinking. this is the worst screen adaptation of ANY vampire story i have ever seen, leaving white wolf completely out of the picture. other than using common clan names (and only 5 of the clans to begin with), the entire series is one large joke. completely changing around the basic 'rules' that govern the world of darkness, making the head of each clan young enough to still have living mortal GRANDCHILDREN (placing them at less that 150 years old, not old enough to be an elder in the game), changing clan personas and general attitudes, and having vampires walk around in daylight? what happened to the world?

leaving aside everything to do with what i associate with the game, the acting was atrocious. and because i have seen most of these actors in other films and endeavours, i know that most of them are not as bad as they were in this series, which leads me to believe they were simply written to be that bad in this series. it's pathetic. "Death to all who oppose the brujah"?? what the heck is that? and that's in the first five minutes of the show?

lest you think i never watched the entire series, i did. the entire, grueling, painful series. and rest assured that i will never watch it again, despite all of you that say that it gets better each time. i won't risk the brain damage. and it amazes me that with all of the good reviews, i can't get a single vampire playing friend of mine to buy the series off of me, most especially after they watch an episode or two.

don't waste your money. buy something else. ANYTHING else.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Grieving over the death of the Undead
Review: I was extatic when the series aired in 1996 Being a Toreadore myself. The Feel of the different Clans was portrayed extremely well. I was DEVESTATED when it was cancelled. As with Wolf Lake. We Unusual People just aren't enough to keep a good series on air. Now I am overjoyed to have found the entire series on DVD.
A wonderful Series for longtime Vampire fans,or Fledglings.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: It was great, now it's Ok.
Review: I remember watching this on TV, when it first started showing. I fell in love with it, and was very upset, when the show was canceled. (One reason, because the main character had died in an accident, in real life.)

Now with all the special effects that can be done, I consider these shows as slow.

I still enjoyed these shows, and am glad I have them for my 'vampire' collection. I love the premis of the vampires living and surviving in the 'modern' world. Trying to blend in with the humans. And of course, the attraction they have for humans, and vice versa.

It would be wonderful, if Spelling would consider doing another show based on the Kindred.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Loved the short lived series..........
Review: I was absolutely devastated when FOX decided not to renew Kindred the Embraced. Not to mention Mark Frankel's tragic death.
He was so handsome and talented. Here it is 2004 and I still miss that show....somehow hoping that FOX will revamp it and bring it back once again.


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