Poster Talk: Blood: The Last Vampire

Oooh. Whee. Another vampire movie.

First of all. This is very very loosely based on a Production I.G. animation of the same title. The title of which is Blood: The Last Vampire. First up, this poster does not suck. It is very difficult nowadays to make a sucky poster, as backed by the producers of Crouching Tiger and Hero would ensure that the publicity would at least do the film justice. This is clear from the way my sister was jubilant that there was a life-action adaption of the anime version. When I complained that the poster looked dubious and B-movie-ish, she'd been excitedly raving about it, mostly because of the trailer (which was not bad) and because she had a lot of time to fangirl over the oversized poster in dim lighting at the cinema in AMK. When I, in my dimwitted way (which is what I sound like about any anime that my sister has watched and I haven't) that she has funny eyes my sister cheerfully said that her eyes glowed red because the main character happened to be half vampire. Ookay. Only the poster girl seems to have eyes of a funny silver colour like the evil mutant person whose name I can't remember from the 2nd installment of the X-Men series.

Prior to watching the film, most of the conversation about the same title seemed to be about two different things.

So, I say. Are you sure this is based on Blood+ and the anime film version?

Sis: Yes!

Me: Uh. I thought she had short hair. She's got pigtails in the trailer you know?

Sis: She did in the anime also! But she uses only one sword. The poster (frustrated sigh) shows her with two.

Me: Umm. And is her mother the evil white vampire?

Sis: No! What are you talking about?

Me: But it looked that way in the trailer...

For the record. She does only have one sword in the film, and a very neat way of extracting said kantana from the long container she hides it in. The Powers that Be knows why the publicity shows two in some of them.

But onward to the review proper. Ignoring the signs that this movie was made on a lower budget than most Hollywood blockbuster season flicks, it was an okay watch. There is plenty of hacking and slashing and rooftop action sequences for those who like that kind of thing and well, pretty much nothing else for everyone who doesn't. The plot is thin. The I am your mother schtick is as old as Star Wars (original series). My sister bemoaned how nobody ever does these things nowadays, but they unfortunately did... so yeah. I have mercifullly, not watched the animated version, so I can forgive that a cinematic experience like this usually calls for some semblance of plot and character growth which may have been unnecessary in a shorter animated version. Also, once again, ignoring some of the not so well shot action bits, the movie was quite enjoyable in an average sort of way. I only wish there were more scenes of Onigen (aka boss villain). She is utterly smug and cool in an evil vampire way and about the only thing with class apart from Saya (main character) on screen. I however wish she used Japanese instead of Engrish, as the latter sounded quite terrible. Still, as proof of the coolness of the actress, she still conveyed the evil sexiness of the character in spite of her awkward prounciation, and that is always difficult to execute at best.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

I suggest Terminator Salvation. If you're going to go in blind to a series, watch that instead. I think it was much better. Even with the CGI Arnie in the buff.

Picture sourced from here.