Blood: The Last Vampire (2000): C

Blood: The Last Vampire combines hand-drawn characters and computer-generated environments to create an aesthetic that imparts a chilling sense of otherworldly unease. Were the story even half as compelling as the imagery, Hiroyuki Kitakubo might have crafted an animé classic. As is, however, his supernatural story skimps so heavily on narrative details that it can barely sustain its measly 48-minute runtime. The obliqueness of his script is initially tantalizing, hinting – during its opening stanzas, in which a young girl slaughters a subway rider and is then ordered about by an American cohort (Joe Romersa) – at enough compelling mystery to whet our appetites. Alas, nothing substantial comes of this story about named Saya (voiced by Youki Kudoh), the last remaining “original” vampire who works for the U.S. government hunting and killing blood-sucking vampire demons disguised as humans. Sent undercover in 1966 at a Japanese military base’s high school to discover and dispatch these creatures, Saya dons a schoolgirl uniform and then wields a blade to devastating effect, along the way protecting a nurse (Saemi Nakamura) who does little more than cowardly whimper. Throughout, Blood: The Last Vampire has style to burn, but mostly offering up repeated shots of Saya scowling and slashing her way through bloody battles, the film comes across as a prologue teaser for a yet-to-be-established franchise.

Comments

[Cde.]

"...the film comes across as a prologue teaser for a yet-to-be-established franchise."

And that's exactly what it is. The Blood short film was created to launch a multi-media franchise, which never caught on like the creators hoped.