Blood: The Last Vampire (2009)

Blood: The Last Vampire (2009)

Starring: Gianna Jun Ji-hyun, Allison Miller, Liam Cunningham, JJ Feild, 

Koyuki, Yasuaki Kurata, Larry Lamb, Andrew Pleavin, Michael Byrne, Colin Salmon

Director: Chris Nahon

Action Director: Corey Yuen

Blood: The Last Vampire is a frustrating film. Director Chris Nahon and Corey Yuen had done great work together years before on Kiss of the Dragon. There are flashes of action brilliance here. Korean lead actress Jun Ji-hyun (credited as Gianna), is quite cute and capable in the lead role. But every time the film threatened to become pretty good, a crappy digital effect or incoherently-edited fight scene took me out of the film. I could forgive the half-baked script, which feels in some way like a precursor to the popular “Demon Slayer” manga more than a traditional vampire story, but chintzy CGI torpedoes the film at every turn.

We open with a series of intertitles that inform us that our vampires—actually Japanese demons—originated in Japan under the command of a Supreme Über Demon named Onigen. Their presence gave rise to a clan of Japanese demon slayers. Only one of these slayers remains, who has thrown in her chips with a shadow-y MIB-esque group known as “The Council.”

This last demon slayer is Saya (Gianna, of Assassination and The Berlin File), a young woman who is quite the (heh) demon with the katana. We suspect early on that the woman may be the Japanese equivalent of Blade, as we see her chugging a bottle of blood once she retires to her small hotel room after killing a demon in a subway train. She is visited by the Council, which includes Agent Michael (Liam Cunningham, of The Tournament and “Game of Thrones”) and Agent Lucas (JJ Field, of Centurion and Captain America: The First Avenger). Agent Michael is very trusting of Saya, although Lucas is a bit more cynical. Although Saya can sense demonic possession (or demonic shape-shifting), her job requires her to kill only after they’ve revealed their true form. As that hasn’t been the case as of late, Lucas thinks she’s becoming a loose cannon and a liability to the operation.

Anyway, Michael has come to inform her of a series of murders around a US Air Force Base in Tokyo—the film is set in 1970, when the Vietnam War was still a thing. The fact that the crime scene photos suggest that the victims died of Exploding Head Syndrome, Saya arrives at the conclusion that none other than Onigen is responsible. The head of demons was supposedly responsible for Saya’s father’s murder, so Onigen is high on Saya’s sh*t list. Since this is American military territory we’re talking about, the Council can’t let a Japanese girl galivant around the base with a sword. So, Saya has to go undercover as a schoolgirl—her cover story is that she’s the daughter of a Japanese dignitary.

Her arrival at the school is marked by casual racist insults thrown at her by class Queen Bee, Sharon (Masiela Lusha, of the “George Lopez” sitcom and the Sharknado films). Sharon also harbors a dislike for Alice McKee (Devil’s Due Allison Miller), the daughter of the general (Larry Lamb) who runs the base. Alice has a slight rebellious streak, but otherwise is an intelligent young lady. Her troubles begin when she starts slacking off in her kendo classes. Her instructor, Mr. Powell (Colin Salmon, of Resident Evil and Tomorrow Never Dies), orders her to stay after class to train with Sharon and her yes-girl, Linda. But then Sharon and Linda opt to use real katana swords instead of the usual bamboo shinai, which prompts Saya to step into action and defend her. Alice witnesses Saya decapitate both girls, followed by the arrival of the Council agents (who claim to be CIA agents) who clean up the crime scene.

General McKee is initially very suspicious of any Agency activity on his base and orders his men to tail the agents. Meanwhile, nobody seems to believe Alice that a) her classmates tried to murder her and b) they were in turn murdered by Saya. So, she sneaks out of her house that evening and tracks Mr. Powell to a bar/nightclub that she has frequented before. When she questions Mr. Powell about why he left her alone with Sharon and Linda, he transforms into a demon…along with everybody else inside the bar. Only the sudden appearance of Saya keeps Alice from getting eaten by the demons and disappeared by the agents. But when McKee’s assistant, Frank (Andrew Pleavin, of the 300 films), finds the Council’s hardware while they’re cleaning up that particular battle—“battle” is probably more appropriate than “fight,” “skirmish,” or “kerfuffle”—Agent Lucas is going to be rather upset that the military is getting too close to their operation…

There is a fair amount going on during the first two acts, what with Saya’s battling demons, the clash between the General and Council, Alice (our Caucasian audience proxy) trying to figure out what’s going on, and the arrival of Onigen herself (Koyuki, of The Last Samurai and Pulse) in Tokyo. The first and last plot threads merge during the last half hour, while all the business about the Council is promptly forgotten about. That is unfortunate, because it makes the final act not only overly simplistic, but it leaves a gaping hole in the plot as to the question “What will happen to the Council following the events of the film?” It doesn’t help that the final confrontation between Saya and Onigen is surprisingly anticlimactic, and the twist involving Onigen is pretty obvious from the outset, not to mention for all the exposition dumps and flashbacks we get, we don’t get any real explanation about the twist itself. The possibility of Saya moving over to the “dark side” is brought up by Onigen, but it is never hinted at earlier and is lost amidst the shower of wire-fu and bad CGI.

Corey Yuen’s work is a mixed bag, as was common for a lot of his post-2000 work. The main culprit is the overuse of intrusive camerawork and quick cuts, which is usually the case when working with actors who have little-to-no martial arts training. The big fight between Saya and the demons in the alleyway outside the bar was pretty cool, with Saya using her sword and performing all sorts of wire-assisted jump kicks. Apparently, actress Gianna tried to do most of her own wire stunts, so I guess that is a point in her favor. There is a fight between her and a demon atop a truck that is falling into a ravine that feels more CGI than anything else.  The best action sequence comes in a flashback near the end where we see Saya’s trainer, Kato (Yasuaki Kurata, of Win Them All and The Secret of Shaolin Poles), take on a bunch of ninja in a forest. That fight has the least number of cuts, crazy camera work, and wires. It’s just a veteran screen fighter doing what he does best: cutting up foolz with a sword. Too bad there wasn’t more of that in the film: Yasuaki Kurata killing ninjas and vampires for 90 minutes.