Blood The Last Vampire is a 2009 Hong Kong remake of the
popular 2000 anime. Directed by Chris Nahon and starring Gianna Jun and Allison
Miller, it is described as action/horror/thriller which is pretty spot on. It
was released on the 26 June 2009 in the UK.
PLOT
A vampire named Saya,
who is part of covert government agency that hunts and destroys demons in a
post-WWII Japan, is inserted in a military school to discover which one of her
classmates is a demon in disguise.
WHY I WATCHED
I remember Blood The
Last Vampire it was a great film but shockingly short at 48 minutes. I figure
it was worth checking this out as it would seem to be a fairly straightforward
thing to turn this story into a live action, we’re not talking the latest
Gundam or even DragonBall (because we all know how the latter went).
WHAT I THOUGHT
I was wondering what to expect, things like
this can easily go wrong. I have watched the original Anime release but that
was a long time ago so I don’t remember much about it but you certainly don’t
need to have watched the original.
The pacing is pretty
slow at the beginning with quite a lot of info-dumping going on but once that
is out of the way things really get going and it shifts into high gear. There
is a reasonably large cast of characters and there are a few other sub plots
that tie into Saya’s story eventually.
Some people may be
annoyed that the plot gets sidetracked by the General’s daughter and her
contribution to the story. Her inclusion can be thought of as the
Westernisation of the film to appeal more to those strange people for whom
senseless violence and bloodshed is not enough to make a film. It works though
it adds something to the story and in some way makes the whole Saya against the
Horde slightly more believable.
So in closing I would
definitely recommend this for the anime completists out there as a fun and
action packed ride.
WATCH FOR…
Great fight choreography
Fleshing out of the
origin and background of the story (may or may not be canon?)
DON’T WATCH FOR…
A copy of the original
Blood The Last Vampire
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