Genres

Visitors Review

2012-05-25 10:51:10

BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE, KICKS DEMON BUTT AND TAKES NO NAMES

First of all, this movie has nothing to do with the newer anime series, BLOOD +, but is in fact a live action version of the older anime, BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE.Secondly, where the anime relied more on stylized gore, the live action relies way more on stylized sword fighting and stunt work (which you might think would be a bad thing, where in fact it adds a really cool new dimension to the story and visuals).You have to keep in mind, when going into the live action movie, that the original anime was done as more of a visual test than a character piece, as the animators where more concerned with the stylized look of the anime (an anime that blended 3D CGI elements and FX camera work with stylized 2D animation to achieve a bold looking, but story light, anime; technically a studio show real, to use to impress future clients looking to have them do anime for them).Now what the live action movie does is take the 48 minute stylized anime, and turn it into a more character driven 90+ minute movie (which it does very well).What we get with the live action film, is much more back story (told through flash backs) of the main character Saya and of her handlers (who are played more like, Men In Black types in the anime, but are given bigger roles and more fleshed out characters in the live action version).Also, the anime story is told in the first half of the film, leaving a second half that delves into a more personal story of the Saya character which ties into the first part, in part, and also ties more deeply into her past, and gives us some insight into her motivations in the present.As for the sword play and stunt work, I'd liken it to that in movies such as, AZUMI, with lots of great stylized sword and wire work done by a very competent, kick butt, female lead.If I had any qualms about the film, it would be the design and sometimes execution of the demon make up and CGI treatment of the fully realized demon characters. Where as the anime versions where quite elaborate and grotesque, the live action counterparts are much more subdued and even a tad bland in comparison, and at times the CGI versions are of a lower quality than the movie needed, but that is just one little problem that doesn't destroy the rest of the film, or lessen it in anyway.So overall I'd say that anyone looking for a live action copy of the anime, should just stick with the anime, but for those who liked the anime and would like to see it expanded upon in a live action format, and/or would like to see some great sword action to boot, then this movie is for you.

2012-05-24 23:52:50

A fun japanese live action anime.

This review is from: Blood: The Last Vampire [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) Blood: The Last Vampire is based on a japanese OVA movie and series that doesn't stray too far from the source material. It has excellent fight sequences that do go a little overboard on occassion. The special effects are good in some places and very cheesy in other - mostly due to bad CGI. The story is good but it does ask the viewer to leave logic at the door and just go for the ride. And if you can, you will greatly enjoy the film. If not, don't bother with it. I you are a fan of japanese live action films or anime in general, pick it up. The Blu-ray has impressive picture and sound.

2012-05-22 21:21:43

chop sucky

This review is from: Blood: The Last Vampire (DVD) What the animated BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE film has in effective brevity, this live action adaptation sorely lacks, even if this sucker does run at under 90 minutes. It still finds time to ramble. While the animated film has bite, this one, er, gums up the works. And to carry the nosferatu play of words even further, this picture is anemic, listless. Toothless.It starts out promisingly enough, with great atmosphere. The opening subway train scene is clearly lifted from the anime film, and the sense of foreboding is then maintained for the next 10 minutes or so. But just when I was starting to think that this might be a good movie after all, things promptly get out of whack. The lead, Korean actress Gianna Jun (a.k.a. Jun Ji-hyun from MY SASSY GIRL) isn't at fault. She's good to look at and she's got presence, even if her character is scowly and terse like every moment. But, oy, everything else about this film...Gianna Jun is Saya, half-human, half-vampire. She looks 16, but she's actually 400 years old, and we know this because of the occasional flashbacks to feudal Japan. Saya's sole mission in life seems to be eradicating all demons and vampires (I think they're the same creatures) and tracking down the Onigen, the oldest and vilest of demons. This story takes place in 1970 Tokyo, with the Vietnam War serving as backdrop. Saya is loosely affiliated with the CIA, with her two handlers aiming her at her inhuman targets. Behind the curtain, a sinister cabal called the Council is scheming and plotting and influencing.Saya's new assignment is to infiltrate the high school in Tokyo's U.S. Air Force Kanto Base, suspected to harbor a nest of demons. Saya is enrolled as a schoolgirl, and she goes to class dressed in one of them incongruous sailor suits which probably gets the pervy nerds all hot and bothered. She does look fetching.At this stage, the movie had me hooked still. There's still a tension in the air. For me, it probably started going downhill when I realized that Alison Miller was going to be a fixture for the rest of the film. Alison Miller plays Alice, the General's pampered teenaged daughter, and she's straight out of a bad slasher flick. She contributes NOTHING. What's more, her constant screen time struck me as pretty insulting to Gianna Jun, the assumption being that Gianna alone can't carry a film that's intended for western audiences.French director Chris Nahon has a vision, and it's blurry. The suspenseful aura gets shoved aside as dreariness sets in, as the story begins to plod. Even Saya's backstory is rendered uninvolving. A lot of the story content feels like padding. The dialogue is awful. And Onigen has to be one of the least formidable head vampiress/demoness in cinematic history. Based on the weak stuff she unleashes, I'm fairly certain that even someone as athletically challenged as myself can wipe the floor with this "oldest and vilest of demons." I hate it when the Big Bad preens and struts and then gets dismissed as not all that and a bag of chips.It's great fun watching Saya handle her business, swirling that sword of hers, eviscerating and cleaving demons to steaks. This is Gianna Jun's first experience with wire-fu, but she puts in the work (check out the DVD's bonus stuff) and she looks graceful and stylish and even convincing. But a big part of that is the surly swagger she demonstrates.But, still regarding Saya's fight scenes, there are times when the sense is that the movie is flim-flamming its audience, and mostly this is when the pesky jerky-cam is at its most jittery. In those moments, Saya looks like she's still wreaking carnage. I just wish I could see her doing it. I'm reminded a bit - and I think I mean this in a good way - of how some of the fight scenes were rendered in AZUMI.The dodgy CG is straight out of the Syfy Channel's house of crap. I dare you to gaze at Saya's ravine encounter with a winged demon and declare it good. The CG-rendered demons have this jarring stop motion quality that would've come off as charming except that it's not the friggin' 1960s anymore.The DVD's bonus material provides two featurettes: the "Making Of" the film (00:19:07 minutes) and the "Battling Demons: Behind the Stunts"(00:16:48). Lots of Gianna Jun training and rehearsing on a wire.Go see the original animated film instead. Even DRAGONBALL Z: EVOLUTION is snickering at this one. I'm ecstatic, though, that one of Saya's handlers - the truly despicable one - gets what's coming to him.And I still like Gianna Jun. She just doesn't get enough support in this movie. Plus, MY SASSY GIRL has really amassed a lot of good will.

Scott Tobias 2012-05-22 14:34:55

Every scrap of footage here has been done better somewhere else.

Ted Fry 2012-05-16 06:54:52

This live-action update of a popular Japanese anime film from 2000 has a heart full of mythology, but its fangs are dulled by an anemic script and clumsy action sequences that are notable mostly for an excess of cheese, not blood.

John Todd 2012-05-15 17:30:37

okay...not the best film for 2009

i was waiting for this movie, because am a big fan of the actress fromthe well known Korean movie my sassy girl. yeah story was a bit dulland a bit boring but overall i though it was OK. some of the fightscenes were quite good, and for a Korean actress who just started tolearn English, did well. the visual was quite poor which didn't feellike a bloody, gory film, because the monster were quite rubbish andcheap. but if u want some decent action or your just a fan of Ji-HyunJun (which international known her as Gianna Jun) then do watch thismovie. This is her first ever English movie and she really worked hardon this movie.but....if your looking for something more then ignore this movie...andwait till it comes out on DVD.

Rossiter Drake 2012-05-13 16:01:41

If you're willing to accept it for what it is - a hyperactive fantasy, pleasantly ridiculous and delivered with amusing conviction by director Chris Nahon - you should be suitably entertained.

Joe Neumaier 2012-05-13 02:17:43

Watch True Blood, Let the Right One In or Twilight instead. Or wait for Thirst or New Moon or Daybreakers or ...

MovieGeekFeed.com 2012-05-09 13:39:55

Blood: The Last Vampire Review

What an interesting film. I don't really know what I was expecting. I think I was expecting it to be a bit more groundbreaking or epic for some reason. Maybe because it's from a producer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. Don't get me wrong. There wasn't really anything wrong with the film. It just didn't leave me as "wowed" as I was expecting it to.The story was simple enough, yet not to an elementary level. It was just easy to follow. It was just enough to leave a lot of room for action and not complicate things too much. It's a good story with a good level of emotion in the character of Saya to empathize with her. Scriptwriter Chris Chow (The Eye 3, Jet Li's Fearless) adapted this for the screen from original characters created by Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) and Katsuya Terada, who wrote the original 2000 anime version of Blood: The Last Vampire.The cast was relatively unknown to me except Colin Salmon, who has been seen in three of the Pierce Brosnan James Bond films, AVP, Resident Evil, Punisher: War Zone, and many others. A lot of the English actors were pretty bad. They just didn't seem to grasp their characters and overacted. The girl that played Saya and most of the Asian actors were spot-on.The cinematography in the film was great. It had very sweeping and breathtaking shots mixed with high energy wire-fighting moments of intensity that somehow came across as beautiful. The mix was well handled and didn't come across as forced or artificial. You could tell right away that it was shot by a seasoned veteran behind the camera.Lastly, the special effects were pretty well-done. You had scenes of people getting cut in half down the middle, which were pretty brutal. There was a scene where the vampire leader is floating in the air with her long pieces of gown floating around her that were just gorgeous. The creature effects were very cool. At one point, one of the bat-creatures is running along the sides of buildings and jumping from rooftop to rooftop and it left me going "wow, that's pretty cool."In closing, I would say that if you're a fan of wire-fighting fantasy films and horror movies, you'll probably enjoy this. I would compare it to Buffy, the Vampire Slayer meets Iron Monkey with a weird kind of 1960's Quentin Tarantino-vibe going on. I think it would have been better if it was completely done in an Asian setting with no ties to the American film industry at all. Also, I failed to mention that the American version looks to run about an hour and 22 minutes while the Japanese version is 91 minutes long. That's almost 10 minutes unaccounted for in the U.S. version. I'd love to see what happened in that lost ten minutes and hopefully will when it hits DVD.

2012-05-09 01:57:47

BLOOD, reigns...rains.

This review is from: Blood: The Last Vampire [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) A fabulous film with great effects, stunning visuals awesome fight scenes and plenty of blood...spilled.

Steve Biodrowski 2012-05-05 06:22:27

Slashing swords, splashing blood, and flashy CGI - not to mention a hot chick in school uniform - sound like a cool combination, but the life bleeds out of Blood: The Last Vampire long before the final reel.

2012-05-04 11:30:41

On Demand: Entertaining but no subtitles

This review is from: Blood: The Last Vampire (Amazon Instant Video) The movie is very entertaining, a good deal different than the anime but not in a bad way. My only problem would be that there are no subtitles for the Japanese sections of the film. Not sure if it supposed to be like that but be aware that for ON DEMAND watching, there are no english subtitles during the japanese sections.

2012-05-04 05:42:14

Not the least bit disappointed!

When the animated version of this film first came out on DVD in 2002, I bought it right away. The animation at the time was amazing and beautiful compared to other anime released around the same time. The only gripe I had about it was that it was short, left us with a HUGE cliffhanger at the end and many questions unanswered. For years I had been waiting for them to make at least a sequel. My prayers were answered with the 50-episode series, Blood+. Instead of continuing the movie, Blood+ was revamped to fit a thicker story and plot. Needless to say, I was very happy with it.So what was going through my mind when I saw a bootleg version of this live-action movie? "Nah, dont expect too much but just watch it since you have nothing better to do today". I'm an anime lover and infatuated with the Japanese culture as a whole, but 95% of their action movies have disappointed me, so I didnt expect much to begin with. As soon as I popped this in and saw the first few minutes, I thought "Wow, when was this made? Early 90's?". As the movie went along, I noticed a number of scenes from the animated version were integrated into the movie. I was very impressed that they did that on top of expanding on the story and action.The action was absolutely great, but you have to either appreciate the anime versions or "kung-fu" movies to begin with. If you're not into this genre, don't bother wasting your time looking for a deep, twisting plot. This is purely entertainment. Especially now that the Twilight series has taken the world by storm(at least in America), you wont find any Vampire/Horror movie with an "original" plot anymore. I'm also a fan of horror movies, but the genre has become dull.Bottom line: Watch this movie if you have somewhat interest in ANIME or KUNG-FU type films. If not, don't waste your time.

Peter Hartlaub 2012-05-04 00:52:00

If that sounds kind of hot, don't get your hopes up.

2012-05-03 08:14:01

The Last Bad Vampire Movie

This review is from: Blood: The Last Vampire (Amazon Instant Video) Talking about Suckers! (Not the Vampire Kind). I am one for falling for the nice tittle. Silly fight scenes, bad Acting and ridiculous specials effects make this Movie really terrifying to seat thru. Save yourself 4 bucks, and go watch reruns of True Blood until the next season starts.

Cherish 2012-05-02 11:22:08

Vampires don't stand a chance...

When a 400-year-old half-human, half-vampire emerges, you best not get in her way! Saya, the vampire samurai takes control of this gory action-filled film. She is on a quest to rid the world of vampires. The only problem is that she is part of one herself. Saya must sustain her existence by drinking human blood, just like her enemies. Saya believed that her reason for living is to kill, but it wasn't until she befriended a human girl named Alice that there is more to her than a blood-craving monster. This film was packed with impressive martial arts, sword-wielding action, and great special effects (even though some of it looked a little outdated). I have always loved looking at karate or martial arts movies for as long as I can remember. After seeing this film, I now want to start taking some sword-fighting lessons! Saya has learned to use her environment to her benefit while fighting and trying to save Alice from the satanic blood-suckers. The action wasn't the only thing that surprised me during the film. It was really the growing friendship between Saya and Alice. After her military father's death (thanks to the vampires), Alice knew that she would fight alongside Saya. Their friendship only grew stronger when Alice saved her life by giving her blood. Saya told her that she had loved somebody many centuries ago before he got killed. Alice had to convince her that she wasn't a monster, but a human. Their bond was stronger since then. It was their war now. It was the only hope for Saya to finally get the chance to kill the one thing that made her a monster: Her own mother. If you are looking for some action, sword-fighting, some blood splatter, and vampires, then you must see Blood: The Last Vampire. It is the perfect film to sink your teeth into. I've seen it yesterday and I couldn't stop talking about it, not even now! Go see it; you won't be disappointed.

2012-04-26 10:16:52

Blood the Last Vampire

I was prepared to give high marks to the Hong Kong adaptation of Blood the Last Vampire. For one thing I thought personally the film had an amazingly cool look that reminded me visually of comic book films and some older Hong Kong films of the early nineties. The action is a mix of good and bad with some bits being overedited throwing slo-mo shots cutting into a lot of the film so you can catch the money shot. And most of all is Gianna Jun who takes the role of Saya and makes this demon slayer in a school girl outfit work even when elements in the film are working against it. Her performance is so good it thankfully outshines the problems of Allison Miller playi ng Alice, the daughter of the general commanding the base subbing for the Nurse of the anime who for the most part remains kind of useless and only exists to be rescued by Saya. Sure the nurse was a damsel in distress but she was more interesting in the way she stumbles into danger instead of outright seeking it. The other actors are mostly good if a bit stiff with Koyuki being wasted in the role of Onigen sounding as if She was dubbed like Gert Frobe in Goldfinger.The truth is the story itself was still problematic never really defining this war between demons and humans. You never really understand the council whom controls Saya, especially when theres a rift between Luke and Michael her handlers that ends in bloodshed. And the climatic fight came off with a whimper instead of the bang it should have had with a twist so boring I wonder if it will ever have the imapact it had say in Empire Strikes Back. Tack that with some of the worst CGI I've seen in any film this year and those are my complaints. Still the film was enjoyable in its own way in my opinion. It doesn't match the suspense or action of the anime which again goes to show the power of animation against live action i.e. I wouldn't notice bad computerized blood and monsters. But Gianna's performance of Saya and the creation of this world in live action make it worth a view for fans of the anime I suppose.The DVD is itself thankfully good with great picture that does justice Hang-Sang Poon's colorful cinematography. I'm sure the detail on the Blu-Ray would be exceptional in highlighting the production design as well as some of the obvious issues I had with the film. Mix that with a good soundtrack with no problems and two well done featurettes on the making of the film and I'll say the disc is thankfully better than I would have expected it to be given the small release the film got. If you like the film its worth the money. All others would do better to rent the DVD in my opinion and gauge the film for yourself.

crying gurl87 2012-04-25 19:51:52

Pretty OK

The movie i agree was not an epic film, nor did i expect it to be, itsa remake of a manga and most of them now a days does an OK job or doesa poor job, if you expected something epic, than in a way you have dumbyourself down even worse, so no need to be defensive on how bad themovie you think it was.Its impossible to fit a manga into an hour long or so movie and have itbe epic. This movie is expected to give you more than just a taste, butunfortunately it does just give you a taste of the manga and not muchmore other than giving you the ending to add on, but it wasn't bad.The movie delivered exactly what it was promising, if you hadexpectations, thats your own choice, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't epic,its a good way to pass the time, for those who didn't like the flowingeffects of the characters, i don't know if any of you guys realize thatits a common theme in Asian films, get over it, we all gotten used toit, its a movie, of course not everything is gonna be real! Thats theart of a supernatural movie.The actors were pretty good, i wish they made Allice or Allison (theco-star) a little more bad-ass, or stronger and let her defend herselfin some scenes, it wouldn't hurt, in the beginning she seemedrebellious and wise, but it seems like she loses that once she meetsSaya and make Saya rescue her most of the time, but i don't mind thattoo much, and let her defend herself. I mean they make her strong insome scenes and brave but weak and defenseless in others. She did havesome corny dialog but 90% of movies out there have it. Nothing to gettoo upset about. The rest of the actors, awesome job! Believablecharacters, nothing too deep except for the main character but thats OKbecause you don't want to stray too far away from the storyline. Thatsthe whole point of growing with a character! The main characterdefinitely delivered in the fighting scenes, I'm a big fan of hers andshe does a lot of romance, comedy, etc movies, so she definitely camethrough in this role, she was passionate, and you could really feel heremotion when she was fighting.The movie is interesting, abt the CGI, it was pretty good overall, ithad its "bad....wtheck...they couldn't have done better" moments butoverall it was good, had some weird but cool action scenes in there,but overall it was average, not bad, closer to good than bad. The only part about the CGI people probably didn't like was when youwould see what the vampires turned into, which was gray-like eaglealien monster, yeah some of the action scenes were looking way toogreen-screen, and there's a scene where Saya is chasing one of thevampire monsters, hes climbing and running on the side of buildings,while she is smashing through the walls of the buildings to catch up,for a moment it did look a little cartoon-ish and animation like withsome cgi effects, and yes it did look lame and pre-mature in thoseareas but nothing to totally disregard the movie with, its like a 1minute scene.Some of the things aren't really answered, in a scene where Saya getsshot, you wonder if she can die because even though getting shot, shestill lives because Allison gives her some of her blood to awake her,granted the bullets were on her lower back, it leaves you thinking, isshe immortal? or was just not hurt badly enough? And there are studentsat Allisons school who are vampires, but how did their lives start out,did they have parents? Were their parents vampires? If so what happensto them, how did they go life without not realizing they had parents,if they didn't have parents? But these questions basically die off oncethe story moves on. Long story short, you find yourself wanting to find out her purpose,and to see if she will complete the mission, its not a boring movie, itdoes keep your attention, however its a short movie, because there area lot of fighting scenes, which i don't mind too much, as long as thestory finishes, and it does. You find yourself wondering what happensnext, but yes there is not surprise ending, no climax really, but thestory completes itself, and you do get to the final fight scene. The movie is full of shocker deaths you didn't expect, but its notepic, good storyline, but could of been planned out better as far asthe movie goes, but its a decent movie to watch, actually a great movieif you want to release yourself from the real world, of course its notgonna be a movie that makes you question life, and the aspects of theworld, but its a great trip into the supernatural, some areas could ofbeen dragged on a little longer, but overall its a good movie becauseof its fight scenes and its release from the everyday world. I can 100%surely say that this movie could of completely done worse, had everypotential to bomb, and totally be corny to the highest potential, butluckily it wasn't!PS this movie is not for those who are squeamish when it comes toblood, you will see a lot of knife cutting, blade and skin contactscenes.

renjones-1 2012-04-25 04:14:37

Great name, great premise, but just utterly dreadful!

Good bits: - The one big fight scene in the middle was great. Lots ofdismemberment and shot very well and with good style for the most part.- Saya's pretty cute. Bad bits: - Blood, as in the actual blood coming from dismemberedlimbs, tries to be stylised but ends up looks like cheap effects. -Plot holes you could drive tank through... In fact it's worse thanthat, much of the important aspects of the background are just notthere and the film tries to make references to things that aren'tcovered at all. - The demons look like they're designed to be easilyturned into toys and lack any kind of believability. Cheap CG shows intheir movement in some scenes. - Character development is quite, quitebad. Alice, for example, seems quite at home with the concept of demonsafter just a few minutes and has surprisingly few questions about thephenomenon. - The end scene and final fight is just shockingly poor,too much build up, not enough substance.Although I've not seen the anime (though have heard it's short and alsopoor) this film is seriously lacking and a real let down.

mr_hampster 2012-04-24 20:09:11

Blood: The last vampire

well where to begin i supposed you take out the slight (quite large)inaccuracies and half the cast of Eastenders and Coronation street yourlooking at an OK film but i would certainly not go out of my way torave about it due to its well not so redeeming points.As mentioned every so often i found myself looking up a certain actorwhose face i scarcely recognised to my avail i knew i had seen them onone of 2 soaps this is not a bad thing and they did not do all that badof a job as actors, but with a title such as Blood and the fan base ithas accumulated i thought they would not have cowered and get a fewmore experienced actors.A slightly happier note the action was executed quite well to a point ithought hey Saya's doing a superman thing but i was soon shot down byhow bad the wire frames stuck out, it seemed rigid and harsh this wasapparent mainly during a fight with 2 big man twins with Afro's inwhich it looked as if someone had made her kick a log in Photoshop andanimated it in flash. This was one of many fights which followed inthis way.The big bad monsters turned out to be well not as big and bad as seenfrom the anime or as well designed, they seemed underfunded and asthough the belonged on Zone horror not the big screen.Just like most live action films they took the artistic licensing a bittoo far and did well a dragon ball, The plot development was more alongthe lines of i grew up in a forest and now i fight evil monsters cos mydad was killed by evil space ninjas why I'm teamed up with an Americangirl i will never know o and whose that crazy woman in white.The plot made little sense and again did a dragon ball failed toexplain the crucial things which well make a movie.Overall if you have never read or watched anything about this film itmakes for an OK watch the action is cool in places and the camera workand setting suffice overall i give this a 4