Blood: The Last Vampire

I finally had a chance to watch the movie, a movie I had wanted to watch. It is not as bad as what others say if you know that this movie is meant for entertainment, a movie that is not to be taken seriously. The stunts and fighting are great, done by action director Corey Yuen. The thing disappointing is the much over-hype last battle, it is featured in every trailer and TV spot but in the end, it is not what I had expected.

The story: The simple adventure story. But since, it is a martial arts movie, I expected cool stunts obviously done with wires. The fight scenes expect the last one do not disappoint. The CGI of he monsters may not be that good but it is still bearable. The CGI blood is also bearable, but the slow-motion will get old. I am surprised that it has a rating of M-18. It is not that violent and most of the blood is CGI and solid.

Overall: Fans of the short animated will catch this out. Those looking for a cool martial arts movie will catch this too but don't expect it to be Asian martial arts movies. This is another adaptation of the animated following Dragonball evolution and Speed racer.

In 1970, the four hundred year-old skilled samurai Saya (Gianna Jun) is sent to the Kanto High School in an American military base in Tokyo by the Council, a secret society that has been hunting vampires for centuries. Saya has the appearance of a teenager but is the tormented half-breed creature with the soul of her human father and the powers and need of blood of her vampire mother. She is obsessed to face the powerful demon Onigen (Koyuki) that killed her father. In the base, Saya saves Alice McKee (Allison Miller), who is the daughter of General McKee (Larry Lamb) and commander of the base, from the attack of several vampires. When General McKee is killed by a member of the Council, Alice runs to the hotel where Saya is lodged. They join forces and go to the countryside to chase Onigen.

"Blood: The Last Vampire" is a highly entertaining adventure. The screenplay and the choreography of the fights blend many other movies and there is no originality. However, it works basically because of Gianna Jun and Allison Miller that perform very likable and charismatic characters. In the end, this film is not a masterpiece but I liked what I have seen. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Caçadores de Vampiros" ("Vampire Hunters")

Martial arts, women with swords, and VAMPIRES...what's not to love???!!! Yes the CGI could have been more realistic... Yes some of the acting could have been better... But if you go into a movie like this looking for academy-award winning performances you're barking up the wrong tree. BLOOD The Last Vampire is a fun adventure with good visuals, cool styling, and great fight scenes. Compared to the thin/non-existent plots in the latest blockbusters coming out of Hollywood this summer, BLOOD is almost an Oscar contender. If you're looking to take an exciting journey into a world where demons are among us hunted down by hot, sword wielding, bad-ass chicks...buy some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the ride!

The movie started out quite promisingly. But after the first 30-odd minutes, I could tell it was going to be a drag.

The stunts got old really fast, the slowmos got quite irritating (and there were *plenty* of them), the monsters that pop up do so in copious amounts for what seemed like a really small scene, the REAL monsters look like badly made puppets - and the finale was... hhmmmm. Quite a let down. Trite comes to mind. Oh, and a LOT of WTF moments.

Sorry, I'm quite prepared to leave my brains at the door for a good action flick, but this is really not it. I would have to leave my brains on the moon to find this an exciting weekend-type movie.

And I cannot for the life of me figure out how the hell this movie got an 8 rating at this point in time.

This movie has everything going for it.

There's action, tragedy, great cinematography, good directing.

But, there is a great problem with the script, its almost like budget cuts came in half through the movie and its not that they sacrificed quality in the process.

It feels like they were half way through a 3 hour epic and they wrote in a quick step to the final scene, to make it 2 hours.

Sure if you want to play up to the existential art-house of cinema the ending would have played out, but the entire movie before it wasn't going in that direction.

It seems like some parts of the movie were directed by somebody else, especially the flashbacks. The flashbacks alone crap on the rest of the movie.

I guarantee this movie for entertainment. A bit of tragedy and entertainment. But there is definitely a hole in the movie that should make everyone who watches it think 'WTF', how did it even get to this point, where is the rest of the movie.

If it had the rest of the movie, its 9/10.

For what it is, its a quality action/vampire movie.

For what it's not, wait for DVD(as long as its on a big TV and HD) because some of the sword scenes are brutal.