Blood: The Last Vampire

Plot synopsis:
The story is set in 1966. Its main protagonist is a girl named Saya, who hunts bat-like creatures called chiropterans. Saya is introduced on a subway train, where she assassinates a man in a suit. Her American contacts or handlers arrive. One of them, David, begins to brief Saya on another mission, while the other, Louis, discovers that the man Saya has just killed was probably not a chiropteran.
Saya's next mission begins at the American Yokota Air Base, which is active in the buildup to the Vietnam War. At least one chiropteran has managed to infiltrate the air base, and it is only a matter of time before they feed again, go into hibernation, and become untraceable. Saya is to pose as a school girl, infiltrate the high school adjacent to the base, and then track and kill the chiropterans.
At the school, Saya runs into a meek nurse, Makiho Amano, on the eve of the school's annual Halloween party. Two of Saya's classmates, Sharon and Linda, make a visit to Makiho at the nurse's office. Suddenly, Saya bursts into the room, killing Linda and wounding Sharon, breaking her sword in the process. Both girls are revealed to be chiropterans. Makiho goes into shock at the revelation. Meanwhile, a third chiropteran reveals itself and begins making its way to the base. Back at the school, Makiho regains her nerve and pursues Sharon into a room full of dancing Americans in costume, where she finds Sharon transformed. Saya saves her and both flee into a nearby motor pool. The chiropterans trap them inside and attack.
David delivers a new sword, and Saya uses it to kill Sharon. The final chiropteran then decides to flee, attempting to stow away on a departing cargo plane. David and Saya give chase and she manages to strike the chiropteran and mortally wound it. She then stands over the dying creature and lets some of her blood trickle into its mouth. Louis arrives and recovers Makiho before the local police reach her.
Afterwards, Makiho is seen at an interview with government officials who question her about the night's events. However, it's revealed that all evidence of the battle between Saya and the chiropterans has been covered up and both David and Saya have disappeared, leaving Makiho with nothing to prove the veracity of her story. Her interviewer then asks her to identify Saya in a picture which has a girl that looks identical to her, except the picture was taken in 1892. The only other description of the picture is the word "VAMPIRE". Makiho then returns to the school, where she narrates that she never really discovered the full truth behind Saya and the chiropterans, and wonders if she's still out there fighting them.

Tags: paranormal, revenge, murder, violence, flashback

Review:
In 1970, the four hundred year-old skilled samurai Saya (Gianna Jun) is sent to the Kanto High School in an American military base in Tokyo by the Council, a secret society that has been hunting vampires for centuries.
As an owner of the original Anime and a fan of the Blood series in itself, I was looking forward to a nice tie-in with the saga of Saya the Femme Vampire Slayer.
Still when it ended I was a bit confused about Saya even with the history given and it made me wonder why they didn't stick with more of the elements from the anime series.If it were only up to actress Gianna Jun and her portrayal of the killer Vampire Saya, I would rank this with high points but the weight of the bad acting by the supporting cast, the already silly story, awful CGI and the unnecessary military portion of the movie drug it down way below that.
There was one action scene that reminded me of old school ninja movies (which is actually a good thing) but for the most part the action was dull and little more than a series of decent stills strung together.The writing was campy and sub-par.
It's full of win to the brim, while I can't guarantee you'll like this movie it must be watched for you to decide for yourself, I see reviews either extremely low or extremely high for a reason, its a real love it or hate it but you just have to find out for yourself I personally loved it, visually stunning fight scenes were a non stop thrill characters were totally likable and I think the story as I found out based on the anime was really good with no big holes, the negative things people have complained about I consider semantics and did not at all take away from the awesomeness that was Blood the last vampire..
Since then Blood has produced a TV anime series and imitators alike.....Now we have a movie which has its good moments but there are too many flaws to count, but before you decide to put this on your skip it list, let me tell you the good and bad stuff.Good: Casting.
Blood is a 1 against a hundred type of film and those movies, especially with a girl in a school uniform, should always have good FX.Worthy of a sequel?: Yes. It has flaws and some weak characters but I have no problem with Saya leaping into the darkness and fighting the armies of hell!
This movie has everything going for it.There's action, tragedy, great cinematography, good directing.But, there is a great problem with the script, its almost like budget cuts came in half through the movie and its not that they sacrificed quality in the process.It feels like they were half way through a 3 hour epic and they wrote in a quick step to the final scene, to make it 2 hours.Sure if you want to play up to the existential art-house of cinema the ending would have played out, but the entire movie before it wasn't going in that direction.It seems like some parts of the movie were directed by somebody else, especially the flashbacks.
I cannot comment how good this is compared to its original because i don't watch anime but i do recommend it for anyone who wants a simple movie with some good fight and action.
"Saya promise me one thing, Promise me you will never doubt yourself" It was like watching a girls sleepover with the odd occasion of a Vampire/Demon that had resemblance to a Dwarf.The Start, The Middle, The end.
A lot of focus is drawn away from the lead character (Saya), an unnecessary character is added which is only annoying on screen, most actors are bad, the manuscript is painfully predictable with tons of plot holes, the movie is altogether incredibly shallow and the CGI looks like it comes from the 80's.I don't know if I need to continue.
Just don't watch it if you're a fan of the original story, because it's just an overall amateur work you won't miss.If you want to watch a vampire movie, watch Let The Right One In instead..
The only redeeming feature of the movie was Kato, and his presence in the film totalled no less than 10 minutes.The excessive use of bad CGI's, poorly choreographed fight scenes coupled with an abysmal script and endless potholes and pointless side stories, and it's understandable why everyone decided to leave midway through the film.Most characters were undeveloped and poorly acted, and the story lacked a certain..
Blood:The Last Vampire was a pretty decent movie considering that it provided the viewers good action scenes with the use of CGI, good entertainment as especially for those who love the anime, and finally, a chance to see at Gianna Jun's first English speaking role as well as her first action movie.
well where to begin i supposed you take out the slight (quite large) inaccuracies and half the cast of Eastenders and Coronation street your looking at an OK film but i would certainly not go out of my way to rave about it due to its well not so redeeming points.As mentioned every so often i found myself looking up a certain actor whose face i scarcely recognised to my avail i knew i had seen them on one of 2 soaps this is not a bad thing and they did not do all that bad of a job as actors, but with a title such as Blood and the fan base it has accumulated i thought they would not have cowered and get a few more experienced actors.A slightly happier note the action was executed quite well to a point i thought hey Saya's doing a superman thing but i was soon shot down by how bad the wire frames stuck out, it seemed rigid and harsh this was apparent mainly during a fight with 2 big man twins with Afro's in which it looked as if someone had made her kick a log in Photoshop and animated it in flash.
This was one of many fights which followed in this way.The big bad monsters turned out to be well not as big and bad as seen from the anime or as well designed, they seemed underfunded and as though the belonged on Zone horror not the big screen.Just like most live action films they took the artistic licensing a bit too far and did well a dragon ball, The plot development was more along the lines of i grew up in a forest and now i fight evil monsters cos my dad was killed by evil space ninjas why I'm teamed up with an American girl i will never know o and whose that crazy woman in white.The plot made little sense and again did a dragon ball failed to explain the crucial things which well make a movie.Overall if you have never read or watched anything about this film it makes for an OK watch the action is cool in places and the camera work and setting suffice overall i give this a 4.
This comes from the graphic effects on display as the film doesn't do a very good job editing its action scenes and the use of CGI for all of its bloodshed is a joke.
There is too much style used in this movie, and too many cuts, slow mo's that it felt very artificial; though I guess for a film like this it goes for style over substance.The final demon, Onigen, Saya's arch nemesis, is beautiful, played by Japanese actress Koyuki, but her English was a bit difficult to hear sometimes, and I had to find myself paying extra attention to what her threats actually were which reduced the credibility of her as a villain.
the movie is suppose to be base on the famous manga/anime BLOOD+, but aside for the main character bearing the same name, the plot and story has been change beyond recognition, it could be call another name, and everyone would simply think its just another vampire movie or an Underworld movie ripoff.
But one day, I watched the live-action adaptation of the anime film, "Blood: The Last Vampire".
After watching it, it was not that bad.The story is just like the anime film except a bit different.
The production companies are based in France and HONG KONG, not Hollywood.Considering the state of live action movies based on anime, be it from Hollywood or otherwise, Blood: the Last Vampire is arguably one of the better ones along side Speed Racer.
It is true to the original in terms of characters, setting and tone but the overall experience is marred by some horrible production values and lackluster execution.The story opens with a creepy narrative about some ancient war with demons followed by a tension fueled chase and sword fight on a moving train which introduces the main character of Saya.
Her latest assignment is to infiltrate a school on the Yokota Airbase to seek out clues to the whereabouts of "Onigen", a powerful demon who murdered Saya's father.The first act of the movie is essentially a retelling of the original and a definite step up from the bland 40 minute anime movie that this film is based on.
All the other fight scenes looked bad thanks to the erratic camera-work coupled with an overuse of speeding up and slowing down the footage in post-production.Though Blood the Last Vampire 2009 is a far cry from the astounding visuals of its 2000 original source material, it still manages to present a good enough story while remaining true to the tone and characters of the original.
But still the movie doesn't deny it's animated roots, which get especially apparent in the action scenes, where blood flows and gets splattered all over the place.While you might like to watch that, there are quite a few downfalls.
i thought this live action movie based on the animated movie was pretty decent,all things considered.i liked the storyline,which is similar to the animated version,but is tweaked a bit here and there to facilitate more story and character development.the main character of Saya in particular is given more humanity here.the fighting sequences in general and the sword fighting sequences in particular are excellent.the movie is also very stylish.the creature effects are also well done in my opinion.i thought the ending was interesting,and without giving anything away,i think they could make a sequel.for me,the live action version of Blood:The Last Vampire is a 7/10.
I just wish at times they would not try and go the extra mile and keep things simple and if they did then this could have been a cracker.I don't want to spoil any of the story when I write these hence likening the movie to others as a rough idea of what to expect and what I will say where "Blood" gets one over on "Blade" is the fight sequences.
But hey, "Blade" got away with it so I think it's only fair that this movie is watched without expecting too much.All in all the story is good as can be expected, the fight sequences in parts are superb and the characters likable too.
I could already tell it was going to be a little far fetched about 15 seconds into the movie, when the Japanese lady wasn't getting molested on the train.(Yes I know she is probably Korean not Japanese) Was kinda funny to watch a fight seen with ten guys in it pretending to be 50 so you can count as each of them is killed 5 times.Bad animation.The only plus side to the movie is Gianna Jun is pretty hot.Who knows it might get better to be honest I never watched the whole thing..
The young girl kills the only other passenger in the carriage.For some reason even though this is set in Japan there are a lot of white guys hanging around, they all debrief the young girl, whose name is Saya.We are told that it is her job to eradicate Demons, and her aim is to be successful enough that she draws out Onigen from hiding.So that we can have more white guys in the film the next bit is set in a US army base school, I guess there is a limit for the number of Japanese actors on screen before US audiences switch off.Saya joins the school as the class's only Japanese student, and she is initially ridiculed, the only classmate who stands up for her is Alice, the daughter the base's General.
Shortly after Saya saves Alice's arse again in a big fight scene involving lots of death and CGI generated blood.The CIA get involved, the army suspects the CIA are withholding info or worse just having them on, and after an unfortunate incident Saya and Alice must look out for each other.That's about it really, they really gave up on the plot after that, re-reading the above I reckon they had about one A3 page's worth of bullet points and thought "that'll fill and hour", the Vampire in the title will get enough through the doors to make us some money.Thanks for nothing Twilight.
Unfortunate, because any movie about a Demon Killing Vampire has a good chance of being worth watching if handled correctly.In this case though I can only think of one scene that was actually genuinely cool, and that occurred at about the 1 hour mark.
Based on a popular anime movie, Blood: the Last Vampire is a live action co-production between Japanese, Hong Kong and French production companies.Saya (Gianna Jun) is the last of her kind, 400-year-old a half-human, half-vampire in the body of a teenager.
But everything becomes more complex when an American teenager Alice (Allison Miller) is thrown into the middle of this secret war and Saya has to protect her.In all honesty Blood: the Last Vampire is not a good movie: the acting is horribly wooden, some of the action sequences are poorly edited and use camera angles that do not allow you to see the action and the CGI was done on the cheap.
There's also an unexpected and wonderfully subtle scene in which ancient half-vampire heroine Saya enters a classroom on her first day at the school, and it's clear from the look in her eyes as she glances over her classmates that she has absolutely nothing in common with these children.The movie is set in 1970 (the events in the original anime apparently take place in 1946) but apart from the lack of mobile phones, it might as well be the present.
And it's unfortunate that the climatic action sequence borrows heavily from setpieces seen in the recent genre movies UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION and WANTED.But despite these shortcomings, as stated earlier I enjoyed BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE and would recommend it, provided that you're prepared for it's lack of originality.Intriguingly, the movie's basic premise - an immortal, demon-hunting female warrior, who still looks like a teenager despite being several centuries old, enrolling into a private school and posing as a student - is near identical to the second season of the British television series HEX, which was screened in 2005.
This movie is expected to give you more than just a taste, but unfortunately it does just give you a taste of the manga and not much more other than giving you the ending to add on, but it wasn't bad.The movie delivered exactly what it was promising, if you had expectations, 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 flowing effects of the characters, i don't know if any of you guys realize that its a common theme in Asian films, get over it, we all gotten used to it, its a movie, of course not everything is gonna be real!
The only part about the CGI people probably didn't like was when you would see what the vampires turned into, which was gray-like eagle alien monster, yeah some of the action scenes were looking way too green-screen, and there's a scene where Saya is chasing one of the vampire 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 with some cgi effects, and yes it did look lame and pre-mature in those areas but nothing to totally disregard the movie with, its like a 1 minute scene.Some of the things aren't really answered, in a scene where Saya gets shot, you wonder if she can die because even though getting shot, she still lives because Allison gives her some of her blood to awake her, granted the bullets were on her lower back, it leaves you thinking, is she immortal?
And the performances are good - Gianna Jun in particular convinces as a deadly centuries old supernatural being dressed up in a Japanese schoolgirl sailor suit, alternating between intense murderousness as she deals with vampires, and distress as, in flashback, she recalls the deaths of those she loved.This movie is not a great work of art but, for an action / Japanese horror / Matrix / Blade / Crouching Tiger hyrid, it delivers what you would expect from such a film..
Soon, Saya and Alice form a friendly pact, saving each other's lives along the way, having to fight off Agency hit men and demons as well.What could've been a smashing action film is completely eviscerated by an over-reliance on CGI, particularly the blood.
I guess they tried to give audience somewhat emotional movie but the dialogs between saya and that girl is just like they are best friends.Now if i start about worse part; movie claims that it is based on anime blood+ but it only has the name and main character.