Blood: The Last Vampire is a live-action adaptation of an
anime of the same name. The movie expands on the anime’s plot but fails
to add any deeper meaning or themes to the story of Saya, a half-human,
half-vampire demon killer. Then again, when the main selling point of a
film is the “kickass schoolgirls” (as promised by both the cover art
and blurb), deeper themes were probably never high on film creators’
to-do list. The fights that take their cues from Hong Kong “wuxia”
movies are well-choreographed and enjoyable, but CGI blood and monsters
mar the rest.
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.