'Blood: The Last Vampire' review

Gianna (Credit: Samuel Goldwyn)

16-years-old on the outside, 400 on the inside, half-human/half-vampire samurai Saya (Gianna) tracks evil bloodsuckers and obliterates them with her special skills. Her ultimate goal is to defeat Onigen (Koyuki), the “oldest, vilest demon” around. When Saya’s travels take her to an American military base in Tokyo during the Vietnam War, she befriends American teen Alice (Allison Miller) who gets caught up in the ancient battle.

The buzz: If the storyline sounds like the stuff of anime, well that’s where it started—as a 48-minute anime from Hiroyuki Kitakubo (key animator on “Akira”). The concept was a hit, and more anime, manga and novels followed, including work by Mamoru Oshii, director of “Ghost In the Shell 2: Innocence.” This live action feature version is directed by Chris Mahon (“Kiss of the Dragon”) and features fight scenes by Cory Yuen (“X-Men,” “Romeo Must Die”). If any of that means anything to you, you’re in the target audience. If it doesn’t, we can tell you already, just skip this movie.

The verdict: There’s a lot going on here—period fantasy martial arts, spooks, secret organizations, ancient demons, the military, teen bonding, flashbacks to Saya’s serene mountain village childhood—and it’s all far too much for the movie’s modest budget and haphazard execution to properly support. Apparently someone forgot to add an extra dimension in the process of adapting the film from anime—the characters have the personality of cardboard cutouts and the actors deliver performances to match. The film is exactly the kind of earnestly bad low budget production that would’ve fit nicely on “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” There’s one great beheading in a gym, and a thrillingly elaborate forest-set fight (which, sadly, makes little use of Saya), but otherwise “Blood: The Last Vampire” will hold no interest for those not already deeply, deeply, immersed in anime and Asian cult cinema. And even they’ll probably be bored.

Did you know? Model-turned-actress Gianna makes her English language movie debut here but she’s already a star in South Korea thanks to her roles in films like “My Sassy Girl” and “Il Mare”—both of which were remade in the U.S. “Il Mare” inspired the Sandra Bullock/Keanu Reeves drama “The Lake House.”

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