Blood: The Last Vampire
by Chris Nahon
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Allison Miller, Gianna Jun, JJ Feild, Koyuki, Liam CunninghamDirector: Chris Nahon
Brand: Sony
Producer: Abel Nahmias
Producer: Alice Yeung
Producer: Augusto Greco
Producer: Chris Thompson
Writer: Chris Chow
Writer: Katsuya Terada
Writer: Kenji Kamiyama
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-10-20
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Product features:
- Condition: Used, Very Good
- Format: DVD
- AC-3; Color; Dolby; Dubbed; DVD; Subtitled; Widescreen; NTSC
Movie Reviews of Blood: The Last Vampire
Movie Review: Just Awesome
Summary: 5 Stars
Actually improving on the excellent 2002 anime, the new live-action Blood: The Last Vampire is a dynamic horror-action rocket ride through an ancient war of demons that still rages in the modern day. Ji-Hyun Jun of 2003's The Uninvited (listed in Blood's credits simply as 'Gianna', allegedly because it was thought anglicizing the names of the film's Asian actors would make it go over better in English-speaking countries, which sounds kind of bizarre...) plays Saya, the vampiric half-human ultimate weapon of The Council, an ancient organization dedicated to preventing a demonic takeover of the world. They've operated in secret over the ages and Saya is their assasin and most skilled combatant, a superhumanly strong, martial-arts trained immortal warrior armed with a sword charged up with 'dark energy' from the legions of demons it's slain. In 1970s Japan, Saya is sent undercover into a high school for the children of military personell on an American army base that the demon shapeshifters have infiltrated. Saya finds an unlikely ally and friend in Alice McKee (Allison Miller), the daughter of the base's commanding officer, and the two find themselves unexpectedly on the scene of a much larger demonic infiltration than The Council expected, and the cusp of a major demon uprising.
Saya has led a solitary life over the centuries, dedicated only to slaying demons, even though - and this is conveyed subtly rather than stated outright - she's inwardly torn. Her vampire half relates to the demons more than to humans. In one of the movie's most telling moments - happening fairly early on and so not a spoiler - Saya cuts herself and feeds her own blood to a demon she's just mortally wounded, apparantly to ease the pain of its death throes and offer some comfort. We see the origins of Saya - her early years in an isolated mountain village following the death of her demon-hunter father, her training at the hands of a kind old warrior, the tragedies that set her on the course of life she's followed for the last few centuries. We don't, however, see the origins of the demon war in any detail (I'd love to see this part delved into in a sequel); hence we don't see if the demons really are just purely malevolent, bloodhungry beasts, or if they have some other motivation for the war, 'their side of the story' so to speak. Questions along this line have occured to Saya as well, as seen in flashbacks. So she's spent ages fighting a war that she has doubts about, and locking those doubts inside. She's also led a friendless existance. The other agents of The Council are her allies, but not her friends. The bond she forms with Alice has an immediate effect. Saya is very quick and violent in her actions, but at least once in the latter parts of the movie she seems to restrain herself because, for the first time in ages, there's actually someone who she cares what they think of her. The duo of Saya and Alice compliment each other very well: although Alice has next to nil fighting skills and has to depend almost exclusively on Saya in physical situations, it's Alice that the emotionally damaged Saya starts to depend on psychologically.
The monsterous, bloody action is tremendous. It walks a line between the enormously stylized and deliberately exaggerated-for-symbolic-effect action of Asian epics like Hero and the more realistic (as in the context of otherworldy creatures or phenomena, not what regular humans could do) vibe that Asian horror movies often strive for, ending up along the general lines of a slightly easternized relative of Underworld (Unrated Extended Cut). Blood: The Last Vampire is the only movie I've seen where things like a sword cutting an enemy straight down the middle and in two actually looked realistic. There are a couple of moments that could be argued to be too over the top, but they worked for me with the overall flow of the movie. The CGI effects on the demons in certain scenes could have been better (and this will probably become a major point of contention for fans accustomed to action movies that can afford a hundred million dollars for the FX budget alone) but, while they weren't the greatest, they certainly weren't the worst - and that includes movies that probably had vastly bigger budgets. And these effects in question only come to play in a couple of scenes. The rest of the time, the special effects (CGI included) are just fine.
The only other real drawback is that you could argue the movie was too short. With the amount of ground they're covering it could have been a full hour longer. I prefer to think that the aspects that got short play in this will just be picked up on in a sequel (I don't know if that's Likely) and expanded there - the origins of the war, more screen time for some of the supporting characters, etc. But the quick pace, in my opinion, didn't hurt things at all. It moved fast, hit hard, and unlike a lot of movies that go this fast most of the time, it didn't lose its emotional punch or the ability to drop hints at a much larger overall saga than the one chapter we're witnessing here. This is one of the year's best and it's a shame it's flown under the radar of much of the moviewatching public. Highest recommendation.
Summary of Blood: The Last Vampire
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