Live Action Blood: The Last Vampire

So yesterday I went and out to see the Blood: The Last Vampire live action movie. First I want to say I had to go to Berkeley to see it. Thankfully the train station was near the theater. Anyway here's my review of the movie.

Okay, first up a fair warning I am going to gush about this movie. With that said I'm going to get some negatives out of the way first. I hate to say but there was enough bad things about this movie to keep me from giving it a perfect score. First negative, terrible CGI effects. CGI effects are a given these days in action movies. Now depending on the movie will determine the CGI. Sometimes it can be used to enhance a stunt or to make an explosion a little bigger. In this movie the CGI was just bad, they used it for the fight scenes with the Chiropterans which I expected but when they used it as for a stunt double that was when it became laughably bad. CGI was also used for blood effects, which I honestly didn't mind so much. It was better than seeing some grindhouse style gushing blood effect. But still.
Another thing I didn't like was there was too much wire fights. Wire fights are when film makers hook their stunt people up to a harness and just fling them all over the place. Sometimes it works and their were parts in this movie where it did work, and looked awesome by the way. But at other parts they got a little overboard with it and that like the bad CGI took away from the scene.
Lastly the final fight was just a bit anti-climactic but I can't get too into it without spoiling the movie.

Now the good stuff. If anyone has ever seen the original BLV, and obviously the film makers did, most people agree that it was good but it was short. The excuse for the 45 minute run time for the original BLV was attributed to the fact that it was used to try out new animation technology. Now when it came to this movie they stayed pretty close to the original, that impressed me the most. Some changes were made, first up it takes place on the fictional Kanto Air Base, as opposed to Yokota Air Base in the original. Another change they made was Alice was a student at the school Saya is sent to and the daughter of the Base Commander, where as in the original she was the schools nurse. Small things that kinda enhanced the movie.
So the basic premise Saya is sent to infiltrate a High School on the base and find and kill the Chiropteran. Alice gets involved when she is attacked by them. By the way in the movie they don't call them Chiropteran, instead they Saya just refers to them as "Blood Suckers", but honestly I didn't even know they were called Chiropteran till I saw Blood+. But the first part of the movie follows the source material pretty well. About three scenes were almost shot by shot remakes of the original. The first is the opening scene of Saya making the movies first kill on the subway train. The second is a small scene of Saya doing some investigation work trying to determine the identities of the Chiropteran, and the other is probably the best scene in the movie in my opinion. It's the scene that was the final scene in the original with Saya standing in the jeep chasing down a Chiropteran in order to kill it before it grabs on to a C-130 and escapes. I really appreciated the fact that the filmmakers went and kept some scenes as close to the original as possible.
The rest of the movie filled in Saya's back story, which if you saw Blood+ then saw this you were like me asking "what?". But it did sorta worked. But this is where most of the wire fighting and CGI blood takes place. At this point it gets dangerously close to being a typical Asian action movie. But with that said it still has moments of awesome. One awesome moment, demon ninjas. Need I say more?

So in closing, imagine Dragonball: Evolution, with half the budget, better acting, better story, and film makers who actually did some research, and you get this movie. This movie has officially set the bar for live action anime movies (I'll admit I have not seen the Death Note movies but then again I never really got into Death Note.) This movie IS how anime movies should be made. The biggest thing I like about this movie, and I can not say this enough, is that it honored the source material and didn't try to totally change it. The acting and casting was on point. I don't understand why they couldn't get a Japanese actress to play Saya but Ji-Hyun Jun, or as she's known in the credits, Gianna Jun not only looks the part but does it well. I strongly suggest that if you live near any of the theaters that are showing this movie, please go see it. You may never see a live action anime adaptation done this well. It's not perfect but you will have a good time and you will be surprised.

My final review I give it a 4 out of 5. Go see this movie or buy it when it comes out.