Blood: The Last Vampire Review

Blood: The Last Vampire is the tale of Saya and her quest to rid the world of vampires, demons and forces of evil. If they could've called it 'Saya The Vampire Slayer', they would have. This version is a full-length live action remake of a 38 minute manga film made in 2000, and sadly, the original outpaces this scrappy venture on looks, tension and - despite the original being a highly stylized animation - believability.

The bare bones of the story haven't changed in the translation to live action. Saya, a half-human, half-demon, all-gorgeous girl is pretty handy with a samurai sword and has been recruited by a shadowy organisation known as The Council to take out the shape-shifting bloodsuckers who live amongst us, disguised as humans. It's a set-up that verged on being too broad for the brief canvas of the manga animation, which left plenty of details pleasingly enigmatic and looked superb. The 91-minute feature film sketches in a lot more back story, most of it sadly redundant, and fails to match up to the striking visuals.

In this version, Saya is given a clear-cut personal motivation for her quest to rid the world of vamps: her father was killed by Onigen, the vilest demon ever to have lived, whom Saya's sworn to destroy. She's given a samurai-style mentor figure, Kato, (whose name may or may not be a tribute to the Green Hornet character, and almost certainly isn't anything to do with the The Pink Panther films) who strongly resembles Pai Mei from Kill Bill Vol. 2, he of the lustrous frosty eyebrows. There's a mostly helpless best friend to reassure Saya: "You are human", when she has a wee identity crisis. Worst of all, there's a completely rubbish twist in the tale which, without being too explicit with our spoilers, feels like it was dreamt up by a lazy Star Wars fan.