My expectations weren't exactly high when I entered the theatre. I was going in looking for a hack 'n' slash, and that's basically what "Blood: The Last Vampire" delivered... it's interesting that the last two non-american films I've reviewed while living in South Korea have been vampire films, the first being "Thirst"... I can't say that I'm particularly drawn to the modern vampire genre, but I guess it's a testament to its flexibility that it has somehow insinuated itself into quiet character dramas ("Let the Right One In"), psychosexual thrillers ("Thirst") and brainless action films ("Blood," not to mention all those Blade pictures). Vampire films have simply been hard to avoid lately.
"Blood" is a pretty direct adaptation of the animé film and series that it's based on, although the timeframe has been shifted from post-WWII to the Vietnam War era. There's also an American female character shoe-horned in to provide our protagonist, the half-vampire Saya, with a character foil. I didn't really mind, as I felt that as characters go, the Saya of the animé film was pretty one dimensional. By providing this previously solitary character with a companion, Saya resonated a bit more. Of course, one would be naive to not see the sheer business motivations behind providing American audiences with an American character they can relate to. Fortunately, the actress they chose was (a) attractive, (b) not annoying, and (c) often rose above the general television-style acting quality displayed by the rest of the English-speaking cast.
I'm not going to bother dwelling on the more convoluted aspects of the story, which is simple enough: a half-demon, 400 year old warrior (Saya) kills vampires with the aid of some shadowy American organization. She gets entangled with a young American woman and they work together to hunt down the final demon, who is also responsible for murdering Saya's father. Simple enough. Now let's move on to more interesting things.
The gore. There's plenty of it, but it's all rendered via cgi, and while not horrible, it's barely serviceable. There are exceptions, of course, given the sheer quantity of graphic violence it would seem to be statistically impossible not to have at least one or two decent kill shots, but most of these kills are the minor kills of irrelevant hordes of vampires...there's also quite a bit of pseudo-speed ramping a la "300," and while "Blood" throws in some new tricks, these slow-then-fast-then-slow fight scenes tend to get old.
The exception is a particularly brutal, elegantly choreographed fight scene that takes place during a flashback sequence, between Saya's former master and a couple dozen undead ninjas in the middle of the forest. The quality of the sequence is such that it feels as if it's been ripped from a different film entirely, and was certainly the highlight of the film for me. To be honest, it seemed as if this was something that the fight choreographer had had on his back burner for a while and was finally working on a production misguided enough for him to shunt it into. It really is the most memorable scene in the film, but the rest of the film pales in comparison as a result.
Probably the biggest problem with the film is the creature work on the demons, who would've probably been more convincing if they'd just used the hand-drawn sequences from the original animé. "Blood" is quite simply the greatest exhibition of some of the worst practical and cgi creature effects i've ever had the displeasure of seeing. Considering the generally high quality of the visual effects in all other regards, I was sore-grieved over what I saw here.
I would like to make special note of the korean actress, Gianna Jun, who played Saya, who I thought had a very mature comportment and was generally a good actress, and was able to act through the language barrier, which is often a setback for other actresses (like Zhang Ziyi, for instance). Her English language fluency and manner actually reminded me quite a bit of Gong Li, were Gong Li ever to be cast in a low-rent vampire action flick. Her moments were always the most interesting and she definitely classed up an otherwise classless movie. Too bad that she generally had poor american actors to play against (besides Alison Miller, who played the aforementioned shoe-horned american audience relation device). I hope Ms. Jun finds more interesting, worthwhile projects to get involved in in the future. A quick search reveals a highly acclaimed filmography (and apparently, an award for best butt in asia) in south korean comedies and dramas, so it seems a little baffling, in retrospect, to see her in such a film as this. Her talent could definitely be served better.
Anywise, I suspect that this film will have to be pretty aggressively edited to score any rating below NC-17 (I'm betting a great deal of the violence in the ninja forest battle will be trimmed, for instance) in the States. "Blood" opened in Korea with an 18 Rating, which is their version of a "Hard R," but screen violence is generally more acceptable here than in the States. So expect the "international cut" to only appear on dvd in the US of A.
I'd rate "Blood: The Last Vampire," or "Last Blood" as I hear it's being marketed in the west: 4/10
"Blood" is a pretty direct adaptation of the animé film and series that it's based on, although the timeframe has been shifted from post-WWII to the Vietnam War era. There's also an American female character shoe-horned in to provide our protagonist, the half-vampire Saya, with a character foil. I didn't really mind, as I felt that as characters go, the Saya of the animé film was pretty one dimensional. By providing this previously solitary character with a companion, Saya resonated a bit more. Of course, one would be naive to not see the sheer business motivations behind providing American audiences with an American character they can relate to. Fortunately, the actress they chose was (a) attractive, (b) not annoying, and (c) often rose above the general television-style acting quality displayed by the rest of the English-speaking cast.
I'm not going to bother dwelling on the more convoluted aspects of the story, which is simple enough: a half-demon, 400 year old warrior (Saya) kills vampires with the aid of some shadowy American organization. She gets entangled with a young American woman and they work together to hunt down the final demon, who is also responsible for murdering Saya's father. Simple enough. Now let's move on to more interesting things.
The gore. There's plenty of it, but it's all rendered via cgi, and while not horrible, it's barely serviceable. There are exceptions, of course, given the sheer quantity of graphic violence it would seem to be statistically impossible not to have at least one or two decent kill shots, but most of these kills are the minor kills of irrelevant hordes of vampires...there's also quite a bit of pseudo-speed ramping a la "300," and while "Blood" throws in some new tricks, these slow-then-fast-then-slow fight scenes tend to get old.
The exception is a particularly brutal, elegantly choreographed fight scene that takes place during a flashback sequence, between Saya's former master and a couple dozen undead ninjas in the middle of the forest. The quality of the sequence is such that it feels as if it's been ripped from a different film entirely, and was certainly the highlight of the film for me. To be honest, it seemed as if this was something that the fight choreographer had had on his back burner for a while and was finally working on a production misguided enough for him to shunt it into. It really is the most memorable scene in the film, but the rest of the film pales in comparison as a result.
Probably the biggest problem with the film is the creature work on the demons, who would've probably been more convincing if they'd just used the hand-drawn sequences from the original animé. "Blood" is quite simply the greatest exhibition of some of the worst practical and cgi creature effects i've ever had the displeasure of seeing. Considering the generally high quality of the visual effects in all other regards, I was sore-grieved over what I saw here.
I would like to make special note of the korean actress, Gianna Jun, who played Saya, who I thought had a very mature comportment and was generally a good actress, and was able to act through the language barrier, which is often a setback for other actresses (like Zhang Ziyi, for instance). Her English language fluency and manner actually reminded me quite a bit of Gong Li, were Gong Li ever to be cast in a low-rent vampire action flick. Her moments were always the most interesting and she definitely classed up an otherwise classless movie. Too bad that she generally had poor american actors to play against (besides Alison Miller, who played the aforementioned shoe-horned american audience relation device). I hope Ms. Jun finds more interesting, worthwhile projects to get involved in in the future. A quick search reveals a highly acclaimed filmography (and apparently, an award for best butt in asia) in south korean comedies and dramas, so it seems a little baffling, in retrospect, to see her in such a film as this. Her talent could definitely be served better.
Anywise, I suspect that this film will have to be pretty aggressively edited to score any rating below NC-17 (I'm betting a great deal of the violence in the ninja forest battle will be trimmed, for instance) in the States. "Blood" opened in Korea with an 18 Rating, which is their version of a "Hard R," but screen violence is generally more acceptable here than in the States. So expect the "international cut" to only appear on dvd in the US of A.
I'd rate "Blood: The Last Vampire," or "Last Blood" as I hear it's being marketed in the west: 4/10
