THE press notes for “Blood: The Last Vampire” take pains to report that the film is based on a 2000 Jap anese anime movie that won prizes at several festivals. It’s as if the new live-action version has to be great because the movie that “inspired” it is great.
Not only isn’t the new effort up to the standards of the anime, it’s bloody awful by any standard.
A Korean actress who uses the single name Gianna (she was known as Jeon Ji-hyun when she made the popular South Korean romantic comedy “My Sassy Girl” in 2001) stars as Saya, who has the body of a 16-year-old girl but is really a centuries-old half-vampire (her father was human) with a thirst for blood.
When other vampires go on a killing spree at a US Army base in Japan, a secret council dispatches Saya to rid it of “demons.”
She shows up for her first day at the base’s school wearing one of those uniforms that look like sailor suits, even though every other girl is wearing jeans and stuff.
She keeps that outfit on for the entire movie, sometimes adding a samurai sword as a fashion accessory.
Could it be that the film’s hack director, Frenchie Chris Nahon, knows that uniformed Asian schoolgirls are a turn-on to his target audience: young, testosterone-laden dudes?
I hate to tell you this, Mr. Nahon, but even an entire army of uniformed Asian schoolgirls couldn’t make this mess watchable.
The plot makes no sense (don’t even try to figure it out), the dialogue is simplistic (“Be really careful, OK”), the acting is atrocious, and the special effects are sloppy and cheap.
“This isn’t really happening, any of it,” somebody remarks on screen about halfway through “Blood: The Last Vampire.” Sadly it is.
vam@nypost.com
BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE Zero stars Quick, a transfusion! In Japanese and English, with English subtitles. Running time: 89 minutes. Rated R (nonstop gratuitous violence). At the Empire and the Loews Village.