Blood:
The Last Vampire (2009/Theatrical Film Review)
Staring Gianna Jum, Allison
Miller, Yasuaki Kurata, Michael Byrne
and Koyuki
Directed by Chris Nahon
Review By Emanuel Bergmann
Critic’s Rating: 6 out of
10
Chris Nahon's Blood: The Last Vampire has
pretty much everything anyone could ask for: Mayhem, mystery, martial arts. Not to mention katana-wielding femme fatales
in schoolgirl outfits and guys in rubber monster masks. A live-action version of Hiroyuki Kitakubo's
highly popular Animé film, BTLV tries -- and for the most
part succeeds -- in capturing the exuberance of Japanese monster-movie
mash-ups. It's a poorly-executed but
highly entertaining B-picture, nestled somewhere between the ridiculous and the
sublime.
Saya is a female half-vampire and demon-hunter with a
heart of gold, played in barely understandable English by South Korean ingénue
Gianna Jun. Saya is an eternal
adolescent, four-hundred year old, working together with a mysterious;
clandestine brotherhood to protect mankind from various things that go bump in
the night. Her latest monster-killing
mission has her disguise herself as -- what else? -- a Japanese school girl and
infiltrate a US Air Force Base outside Tokyo. The story is set at around the Vietnam-era,
allowing French director Nahon (Empire of the Wolves) to indulge
in some early-1970s production design and strained metaphors: As mankind is
fighting senseless wars, an invisible war is raging under the surface -- the
ever-popular conflict between darkness and light, man vs. bloodsucker. Saya, of course, represents mostly light, with
a tad of darkness thrown in for good measure: As a half-vampire she needs
regular sips of blood. Her great nemesis
is Onegin (played by the Japanese actress Koyuki), an age-old demon hell-bent
on destroying mankind and corrupting Saya. To defeat the infamous Onegin, Saya teams up
with Alice (Allison Miller) an actual schoolgirl and the daughter of an
American general. Together, they embark
on a needlessly confusing adventure, a fun and ridiculously overblown payload
of chase sequences, betrayals, reversals, flashbacks and, of course, an
effects-laden showdown.
The film is a strange testimony to the power of
globalization, or at least global pop culture and wads of cash: A polyglot
group of largely unknown actors from South Korea, Japan, Europe and the US,
under the guidance of a French action director, bringing to life a Japanese Animé
on location in China's Yunnan Province. The
mélange is not always successful. Ms.
Jun struggles with her dialogue, and the ensemble never manages to find a
cohesive tone. The many sword fights are
choppily and disappointingly staged by Corey Yuen (X-Men), and further
impaired by the overuse of CGI-effects, substituting for blood. The script, surprisingly, offers occasional
pop-philosophical dissertations on the nature of good and evil. In one of the
many flashback sequences, Saya asks her mentor Kato Takatora (Yasuaki Kurata)
pointedly, why God -- whose existence seems to be sufficiently validated by the
fact that supernatural creatures abound -- would allow his creation to be
tormented by demons. Takatora has no
compelling answer, except this: We cannot know God's plan, but we must all play
our part in it -- we must all do our duty.
The theme of duty and devotion to one's task is one of the more
satisfyingly recurring themes of the script. Along with the usual banter of
good and evil, loyalty and betrayal, and how -- if ever -- we can overcome our
inner demons.
BTLV is trashy, fast-paced and often nonsensical
entertainment. For all intents and
purposes, it should be a terrible movie.
Except it isn't. It's no less
entertaining than many of the overproduced Hollywood summer blockbusters, and
much less pompous. It doesn't aspire to
much, but it hits its mark more often than it misses. A fun, strange, flawed, yet very refreshing
movie. Imminently watchable. A strange and exuberant piece of Asian pop
cinema.
