Blood: The Last Vampire 血戰：最後的吸血鬼

"Blood," directed by Chris Nahon and stars Korean actress Gianna Jun (better known as Jun Ji-Hyun from the Korean hit movie "My Sassy Girl"), is an expansion of the 48-minute animated film of the same name.

In the movie, Saya (Gianna Jun), a 400-year-old half-human half-vampire, cooperates with a secretive organization to hunt down other bloodsuckers. Her arch-enemy and final target is Onigen, the leader of the demons. Saya's latest mission brings her to a high school on a U.S. Army base in Tokyo, where she meets her first real friend in a very, very long-time: Alice, the daughter of the camp's general.

Saya's dilemma of her often brutal killing – her blood-thirsty half is needed to save her other half – is the center of the story. In the movie there is a scene in which Saya feeds her blood to a dying vampire to ease its pain. In another scene, the heroine almost gives a fatal blow to a betraying human, only to be stopped by Alice at the last moment.

The difference between monster and human is totally arbitrary. If it is the nature of vampires to feed on human blood, then their existence is no more evil then that of humans who feed on animals and kill each other in wars.

The movie adds depth to the original anime, a gorey sword-slashing thriller, by challenging the traditional views of vampires and humans and good and evil. Its anti-war message is straight-forward: The act of killing diminishes humanity, even if it is done for a 'just' cause.

However, with the introduction of the Onigen plot, an addition to the original storyline, the subtlety in storytelling ends and Luke-Skywalker-versus-Darth-Vader cliché begins. Onigen and her subordinate vampires are portrayed as pure evil that kill for the joy of it. The movie suddenly switches back to a black-and-white vampire hunter story.

Of course, the shortcomings in storytelling only mean that the movie fails to transcend its genre to become the "Dark Knight" of vampire movies. After all, one should not ask for Shakespeare from a summer action picture.

What is more troubling in this sense is the movie's lackluster action sequences. The frequent use of montage severely fragments the fight sequences. They make Gianna Jun, who is a rookie in action movies, look even less convincing as a deadly vampire hunter.

Gianna Jun puts on a brave show in her Hollywood debut. However, she falls short in delivering the complexity of a 400-year-old who spends most of her life killing things. Of course, part of the challenge is her admitted difficulty with acting in English. If Jun intends to continue her career in the international market, she must tackle the language problem.

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