Blood The Last Vampire 2009 Live-action Film
Gianna Jun plays Saya in the 2009 Film Adaptation of the Anime
Aug 21, 2009
Blood: The Last Vampire is a live action film based upon the anime of the same name and follows Saya, a half-human, half-vampire loner, as she hunts down and kills other vampires. She is sent by an organisation “the Council” to infiltrate an American air force base in Tokyo, which (for some reason) she does wearing a sailor outfit. Once there she proceeds to slice her way through any and all vampires lurking on the base before being forced to go on the run. That is the basic plot and once that is out of the way, you’d expect to sit back and enjoy a Blade-style action flick, with a decent story, plenty of fights, and a tragic hero thrown in for the audience to sympathise with.
The Last Vampire's Pros and Cons
First the pros, the fight sequences are stylishly choreographed and the monster’s CGI blood flows very unnaturally as it is spilled from the vampires. This might have been done deliberately to show that whilst the vampires look human on the outside, on the inside they are very different, or it could just be dodgy CGI, the choice is yours. Jun Ji-hyun (she adopts the name Gianna Jun for this film) plays the role of Saya, our heroine searching for the most powerful of the vampires, Onigen. Who just happens to be the murderer of her human father (no prizes for guessing who Onigen turns out to be). Jun is the only decent character in this film. She does the majority of the fight sequences herself, and hacks her way through hords of enemies with beautifully crafted, yet brutal efficiency. She doesn’t waste time on unnecessary cuts or moves, she goes for the kill each time, and moves on.
Sadly, that is where the pros end.
The films suffers from irritating performances from some stars and concepts which seem to have been forgotten half way through. Early on, Saya rescues an American girl, Alice Mckee (Allison Miller), from a group of vampires and spends the remainder of the film trying to keep her alive. Miller seems to relentlessly complain about how terrible it is being the daughter of the base’s commanding officer because everybody knows who she is and so she can’t be independent. So irritating is her continuous presence that you begin to wonder why Saya bothered to save her in the first place. The film would have been far more interesting if it had focussed on the relationship between Saya and the Council’s Micheal. He seems to be a kind of father figure, which in itself is bizarre considering she is over 400 years old. Unfortunately their relationship is left in the background to make room for the Saya’s friendship with Alice. The Council, who mop up in the aftermath of Saya’s demon slaying, also appear to have been largely forgotten as the film progressed.
Good Concept Done Badly
Basically Blood was one of those films that had a lot of potential but was let down by a clichéd script, (we know Saya has a tragic past because half-human half-vampires always have a tragic past), and the irritating performance of Miller. The director, Chris Nahon, didn’t really seem to know where he was going with it and seemed to just go through the motions until the final battle between Saya and Onigen. The fights sequences were impressive, and Jun was a fine action heroine but they were not enough to make the overall film anything other than tedious and unengaging.
2/5
Decent fight scenes, and Jun works hard, but if you want a good half-vampire action films watch the Blade trilogy
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