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 Eric
 Marlow
 Nate
 Peter
 RSSBlood The Last Vampire Live Action Movie Madness I went into this movie with much trepidation and low expectations. I think anyone who starts a review like that is saying that they are surprised by the resulting experience. The original animation was a one off creation for a studio to test how to mix cgi and traditional animation. If you take the time to watch it and if you can throw your mind back to when it was made you will be impressed. Every now and then you have to remind yourself that this had never been seen before. Even if you don't do that you will probably be impressed by the technical mastery of the animation. 
The story from the animation holds a different appeal because it is so spartan in its delivery. They don't go into Saya's background, they don't explain much about the organization, they don't get into her motivations, they have her show up and do her job. When the job is finished so is the animation. 
So my concern with the movie was mainly that they were going to have to fill another 40 minutes or so of story and they had a couple of ways they could do that. They could add in some more demons for her to kill, which is actually the safest option. They could kill the same demons as in the animation but make the fights last a long time, this is a little risky but holds a particular appeal a fan coming from the animation. The other options are more Hollywood, add in a love interest, explore her motivations, fill in her background story or have her take on the very organization she works for. 
They went with filling in her backstory, which is a tough thing to do because people who have watched the animation have all done that already and when you don't match the expectations of the geek nation heads often roll virtually through message boards on the internet. 
The creators of the movie were very sensible in the reserve they showed in crafting the back story. They basically just killed everyone Saya is related to or likes and made her a vampire. Job done. I suppose that technically counts a spoiler, but if you couldn't have written that yourself I bet its still surprising when you watch it. 
In the animation Saya grudgingly and half assedly protects the school nurse. There is a great line where she says “Your lucky I'm not allowed to hurt you.” Which is part of the appeal since that line in itself could spawn a story. In the live action movie the nurse is replaced by “girl who becomes confidant”. I am really glad they stayed away from a love story. It doesn't match the character at all and could have provided a terrible ending like they had in 30 Days of Night movie. 
Trusted friend bothered me a little. Saya saves her a couple of times when it really would have been more troublesome and the Saya from the animation heavily implies that she has little regard for humans or human life. The movie didn't need her beyond exploring the happenings on the military base where a majority of the story occurs. If I had been writing the story at some point she would have been turned into a demon or been feasted upon simply because I don't enjoy the conventions of most movie making. 
Most of the movie reviews I have put on this site have really just been me ripping on the movies I am watching. I got this one expecting the same and got myself ready to really rip it apart since the base material was so good. I enjoyed this movie. It doesn't have the greatest production values, but you forget about that pretty quickly when you start to enjoy the action of the film, which is a thousand times better than most other movies with the same budget and production. Maybe you don't want to pay movie theatre price for this, but worth renting for sure. loco head:i did not get to se the movie in theaters here in tx cuz they were not out for a long time and not many theaters had this movie only 1 in the hole hoston area and it was out of my way so what i like to know is how do i buy this DVD movie I have the anime but not the movie if any body out there know were i can purchase this movie let me know at angelayala69@yahoo.com Peace. Peter:The DVD will be released sometime in October. Amazon will most likely have it but if they don't you should try play asia for this kind of material. add comment |