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An Early Look at the Live Action Blood: The Last Vampire (Updated)
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Column by Scott Green
A big thanks to AICN reader Dan of geekadelphia for sending in this early look at the live action Blood: The Last Vampire.
Tonight I was able to see an advanced screening of the completed version of Blood: The Last Vampire at Wizard World Philadelphia, the movie is set to open in a limited release July 10th.
The Story of Blood:the last vampire is something like this, it’s the story of Saya who is a 400 year old “halfling”(Father was human and mother was a vampire) who on the outside appears to be your average 17 year old Japanese school girl with an affinity for samurai swords. In her spare time she hunts vampires because, due to her condition vampires are the only things she can feed upon and with her epically honed over 400 years samurai sword skills she shows Blade a thing or two. The story takes place near a US military base in Japan during the Vietnam war era.
The film is directed by Chris Nahon who also directed Empire of the Wolves, and Kiss of the Dragon. It stars Gianna in the title role of Saya, whom you might remember from the korean movie My Sassy Girl who actually does a really good Saya. I think they made a conscious choice not to sexualize Saya or make her cute because she is dressed as a Japanese school girl and it think it pays off, because it makes that fact that she does the things she does a bit more believable. Alice Mckee plays the role of Allison Miller the daughter of the General who oversees the base, where most of the film takes place. This is one of her first film roles and I think she did a good job playing Saya’s damsel in distress. JJ Feild a UK actor who plays Luke one of Saya’s handlers for the council steals the show on numerous occasions and really manages to stand out quite a bit in this film.
When doing a good adaption of anything be it a graphic novel, anime or video game there is one cardinal rule you must abide by, and that is staying true to the sprit of the original and respecting the source material. When Hollywood chooses to adapt anything there is a reason because it was successful. There is a pre-installed fanbase for this so less advertising and explaining what the film is about will have to be done.People who like the original source material are usually pretty inclined to see it and this is where Blood: The Last Vampire succeeds on quite a few levels.
Within the first 10 minutes you can tell not only has the writer and director seen the source material and have decided to honor it with this incarnation, but they have made that rare decision to not only stay true to the dark roots but to take it to the next level as well and make a full fledge horror movie. The usual course of action is the horror elements are toned down while action elements are turned up because it’s proven people like action movies more than horror.
The movie follows the plot of anime quite closely from the start but since it is an hour and half they have decided not to leave it quite as ambiguous as the anime, but fill in the missing back story rounding it out quite a bit and with the original Japanese production company fronting the money for the production I think they might of had a say in how the story turned out. The piece now has an actual ending albeit a very Japanese one, if you have seen enough anime you know what I mean, it ends but it is just a bit vague and open to interpretation. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy things that make you think a bit and aren’t just handed to you, here again another good decision.
Now with this being a horror movie it is indeed a HORROR MOVIE. The film seems heavily influenced by Kill Bill action wise but instead of simple street thugs Saya is fighting and killing copious amount of vampires dismembering them in neat and interesting ways. With the producer of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Hero you would expect nothing less than awe inspiring fight sequences with some pretty insane wire work thrown in for good measure.
Now speaking of the vampires these are not your sparkly Twilight ones, these are more a Japanese brand of vampires with a bit of demon thrown in for good measure and very close to the ones in the anime, which I think is part of the problem that they don’t exactly translate well from 2D to 3D. Now if I had to say this film had a major weakness it would be the CGI of the higher level vampire demon creatures Saya fights. If you are at all familiar with Japanese films your very aware of this weakness in their cinema, because they like to keep their special effects work within the country and no doubt american effects houses can’t be cheap. When I saw the first vampire change into his new form I winced a little bit because it almost appeared a little silly and the film had been doing so good up until then and I really wanted to enjoy it. The film makers I think knew this was a weakness and decided to keep this effect limited throughout the film.You do get use to them but I really think they could have implied more to loose the cheese factor these special effects promote. I also guess because of the title of the film they also use a very interesting blood effect whenever someone is wounded or their head is blown up with the blood appearing very congealed and almost a bit like little droplets of red matter from Star Trek this only doesn’t make sense when you see blood on a character or an object and it doesn’t have the same constancy, but honestly these are only my fannish nitpicks.
I honestly can say if you enjoyed the anime you will enjoy this film or if you liked Kill Bill and a bit of the ultra-violence you would probably enjoy this film as well. I think it stands well enough on it’s own that you don’t need to see the anime or have read the light novels or manga to enjoy this. I came into this with average expectations and I was floored with how they not only got the adaptation right but made a really good kung-fu samurai horror flick as well. The acting is good for a genre film and the roles are carried well my only gripe would be the special effects work but the story is solid and that helps quite a bit.
Scott here...
I recently heard from Mark Russell, author of Pop Goes Korea (reviewed in the Wall Street Journal here), concerning a correction and a counter-interpretation.
Russell points out that Blood: The Last Vampire is "a Bill Kong production (Edko Films) out of Hong Kong, along with some French money. A quick look at the credits shows almost no Japanese influence. "
On his Korean Pop Wars blog, Russell notes
About halfway through the film, the mood shifts, and it begins to feel like a Hong Kong movie like CHINESE GHOST STORY, with a lot of really frenetic action sequences and cheap special effects. One of the biggest action sequences is really poorly done, and looks like the producers ran out of money. The story changes from the original anime, too, acquiring a ridiculous backstory that is unnecessary and really, really cheesy.
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Seeing with the better half next Wednesday I think
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I'll check it out one way or another. I'm more looking forward to Ninja Assassin though!
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-sexualize Saya or make her cute."
I beg to differ because that chick is possibly the cutest looking thing I've ever seen.
I wasn't the biggest fan of the anime; though I guess it passed the time well enough, Hellsing OVA has all but made it redundant. Still, this looks like it could be some schlocky fun. Anime hasn't translated well into the live-action medium thus far (although I'm one of those crazy sonsovbitches who actually really liked Speed Racer), but it's all about keeping the cool quotient up and the hokey dialogue and overly-elaborate plots to a minimum. -
at least we get priority on some flicks
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I liked the series ok but the episodes towards the finale were grueling to say the least.However I'm aboard for this.
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I'm there, no matter what.
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You and me both. Speed Racer was one of my favourite 2008 movies. Only beaten out by TDK and Wall-E.
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as in the anime series or the actual anime film? cause the film was pretty short, and a lot better then the series in my opinion
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A nerd with an Asian girl fetish?
Stop the press, Vicki Vale! -
I am curious to see this. I remember seeing the original anime years ago. I enjoyed it a lot, but I'm curious about a live-action movie because the triumph of the anime was in the animation. The visuals were what made it and the actual story was fairly lackluster by comparison. I also remember it being fairly short. Hopefully they've fleshed it out a little bit and also made a film where the visuals are just as engrossing as the animation was.
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It realy is nothing special.
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Hoping this one kicks ass as well, with vampires and Asian chicks with fucking swords..
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It's brilliant to see already that the lasting cultural legacy of the Twilight films is that every time a good vampire film comes out someone can say "These aren't your shit vampires like in Twilight".
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Sat through that pile of shit with the wife. She loved it. WTF is up with this world?? The Hunger, Fright Night, Nosferatu, Vamp, The Lost Boys - these are all vampire films I grew up on, amongst others. Teens today grow up on Twilight. For fucks sake. We might as well give up on the human race right now, because that series of films is going to turn the entire teen demographic completely gay if they aren't already, and the species is going to bumfuck its way to extinction.
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Like you can other girls' underpants in Japan?
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You had me fooled!
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I fully admit it.
But being called a nerd by a guy named "landosystem"? ;-) -
I hope they kept the ending of the anime because it was so tragic and ironic in equal measure.
The implication being that humans have become so desensitised but Blood literally FEELS every kill she makes and the price and toll that takes on her.
I would say Blood is up there with Akira, Dark City and the Overfiend trilogy in terms of anime. -
If it comes out nearby... Girl looks cure enough, but there are much cuter ones out there I guess he meant they didn't go all supermodel kawaii... This Saya looks to have the right balance between sexually appealing and can-be-taken-serious-ness. I liked the technical presentation of the original OVA but felt it was too short and just a filler film. The Blood+ series was radically different but entertaining and I enjoyed it a lot more.
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Japanese schoolgirl sailor uniform after all...
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So, I'll most likely have to wait for it to hit video.
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Something just embiggened in my pants.
That is all. -
come on it Saturday...bring on Scriptgirl....She's still more interesting the the rest of this site....
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...that came up with this one?
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News on this film are old, they have been around the net for months... sigh...
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so wrong yet so right.
I'm curious to see how they fill in the entire what---hour and a half? The anime was rather
short. -
A man?
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...this has Larry Lamb in it from 'Eastenders', and Michael Byrne from from 'Coronation Street'; Gails dad! Funny old world!
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Have gone up in the last few days, where people have written "Loose" instead of lose?
I'm not a spelling Nazi, but it's a really fucking basic word. Is everybody copying each other? Or has the world gone dumb?
& "Kung Fu Samurai"? Really? So she's a Samurai who fights in a Chinese style? Um..ok. -
seppukudkurosawa - I think the reviewer means compared to other anime they haven't made Saya cute. In other words, she's no Hello Kitty or Sailor Moon.
HollywoodHellraiser - the series was twice the length of a normal anime series and done on quite an epic scale considering the subject matter. But yes, I'll admit having Diva pregnant put me off a bit. I mean physically how old was she?!
scnjedi - Have you seen Let The Right One In?
knowthyself - I think the reason so many think the original anime movie was overrated and lack-luster is because, so I've heard, it was just a test piece for some of the new staff at Production IG. It didn't have the budget of other IG movies, let alone the length. That it became the success it did is a testament to how right they got it.
Melvin_Pelvis - yes, but I doubt the camera will do any upskirt shots in the live action. I could of course be wrong. I don't think there was time in the anime - it was pretty action packed.
angusthecow - where is this supposed months old news? As far as I can tell the movie hasn't been shown yet let alone reviewed to such detail. -
The Dark Shite - the reviewer may not have English as a first language. Also English is dumb.
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(& the staff) Write "Loose" instead of "Lose". My other pet hate is the number of people who try to call others "whiney" & write "Whinney", which is a noise a Horse makes.
English is great by the way. I use it all the time. When speaking & stuff. -
and since it has conventions rather than rules its grammar, spelling, and semantics are quite convoluted and confusing compared to more structured languages like Japanese and German. eg. The "rule" to drop y when adding ing is broken quite often (flying). Hence, by definition it isn't a rule, it's a convention, and not a particularly clear one at that.
I agree with you about the loose/lose and whiney/whinney, but this is not a place for formal English so there's hardly any point getting upset about it here. I promise you it's not going to get any better. -
Just saying it's pretty bad these days. I partly teach English in Japan for a living & kids here have a better grasp of the language than kids back home.
I also don't get the love for Japanese girls in uniform. It's kinda creepy to hear that if you work as a teacher here. -
Might simply be a typo? I'm not very effecient at typing, especially when trying to do so really fast on a comment section/forum... Many times I spell 'the' 'teh' or in the case of my previous post here I spelt 'cute' as 'cure' because the 'r' is close to the 't' on the keyboard and I hit it by accident. Also you probably know the mind trick where when reading letters we usually only notice the first and last alphabet and our mind automatically fills in the in-between letters even if it's spelt wrong so we miss corrections. Anyway whenever I end up doing something like that I get pretty ticked off at myself, and I'm guessing 'loose' might just be a common typo for some reason where we hit the 'o' twice while typing too fast by accident... Just a thought...
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I suppose it might just be the cute 'image' attraction to youth... and partially (perhaps largely) also because of porn and the sort of taboo thing that either plays on having sex with a minor/inexperienced girl or perhaps replaying on our youthful memories when spring was in the air and you go through the powerful phase of puberty etc. and it recalls that sort of thing that older guys yearn for as symbolizing a return to their youthful days. Seems to be cultural too. For asians, it's schoolgirls, for westerners, it's cheerleaders/babysitters or whatever... But maybe I'm reading too deep into it. Being an anime fan the images of schoolgirls as being cute/ lively etc. might just give that sort of stereotype that all japanese schoolgirls are like the characters portrayed in anime and maybe the anime watching demographic tends to gravitate towards that kind of ideal girl character, no doubt writers/artists try to utilize that. Anyway, life goes on...
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looking forward to seeing it. i think us asian cinema vets can let a few poor CGI shots and flashbacks slide. pretty used to it at this point, haha.
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Really psyched he landed this cuz the anime was amazing.
Hopefully Besson will toss him the next Transporter movie. -
Jun 21, 2009 5:33:59 AM CDT
Lots of potential paedophiles around here
by richard_gere_raped_my_gerbil
*Brushes them away with a big broom*Yuk.
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Jeon Ji-hyun (or Gianna Jun like she call herself these days) is from South Korea. ;)
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I don't think fucking a 17 year old will land anyone in jail. You'd fuck her...hypocrite.
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If you're over 21 and sex have with a 17-year-old, in most states you are guilty of statutory rape regardless of consent. Yes, you can well go to jail. Many have.
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It's not pedophilia. 17-year-olds are only legally children. They're not physically or psychologically children. Finding them sexually desirable, which many people of both genders do, is ephebophilia. It's not even considered odd unless you go after them.
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