Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Uriah43 Having suffered a personal tragedy several hundred years ago the half-vampire, "Saya" (Gianna Jun) seeks to kill the head vampire responsible for it named "Onigen" (Koyuki). Likewise, a secret counsel, also formed hundreds of years ago, wants to kill Onigen as well and enlists the help of Saya. To gather clues about Onigen, they enroll Saya in an American high school on an air force base in Japan. Not long afterward, Saya comes to the aid of a classmate named "Alice McKee" (Allison Miller) who has been targeted by the vampires. By slaying them, Saya forces Onigen to come out of hiding to respond. Anyway, that's the basic plot of the movie and in many ways it is similar to "Blade". However the main character in this film, Gianna Jun, doesn't act like she's doing everyone a favor by performing--like Wesley Snipes did in "Blade". In that regard, not only is she a better actor but she's much better looking too. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the supporting cast , script, or any of the other assets that "Blade" had and as a result all this film has to offer is a thin plot with plentiful action. Combine that with a couple of scenes which are entirely in Japanese (with no English subtitles) and it became difficult to maintain interest at times. No doubt action fans who enjoy martial arts and sword fights will like this film. But because the dialogue and acting opportunities were so limited, the talents of Gianna Jun and Koyuki (who appeared in the movie "The Last Samurai") were never fully utilized. As a result, this film never realizes its potential.

thomvic I have never seen the anime series, if it is a series or an animated film. I remember seeing the trailer for this movie a while ago, thinking 'wow that looks so cool, gotta see it!'. I have a soft spot for Asian style martial arts with all the flying around Crouching Tiger style as it brings a fantasy into reality on the screen.This movie is simply entertainment face value. The main heroine, I felt gave a decent performance as Saya who brings a beauty and one of those kick ass don't mess with me be warned type of charisma to the character. Her English is decent. The additional character of Alice is more of an annoyance and is simply there to add that whole emotional support in helping Saya be 'more human' and also is there to act as the damsel in distress.The special effects - well sometimes they were alright and sometimes it was a bit laughable. There is too much style used in this movie, and too many cuts, slow mo's that it felt very artificial; though I guess for a film like this it goes for style over substance.The final demon, Onigen, Saya's arch nemesis, is beautiful, played by Japanese actress Koyuki, but her English was a bit difficult to hear sometimes, and I had to find myself paying extra attention to what her threats actually were which reduced the credibility of her as a villain. The climatic fight scene or confrontation felt a bit rushed, which was disappointing considering that scene was really visually eye popping.I should probably watch it again and just enjoy the ride, but that feeling that there could have been a lot more done still resides.

Polaris_DiB To be sure, I really did expect less plot from this movie than it actually had, but though surprised by the amount of character development and built narrative actually contained, it is still clear that this is a quick one-off of a much more intricate storyline, even though I have not seen the original anime. It also had surprisingly good acting, with Gianna Jun making Saya feel much older than she (the actress) obviously was, and Allison Miller actually managing to be a not annoying "What is this I don't understand!" teen. Liam Cunningham and JJ Field bite into their roles with relish, even if their characters eeeeeehhhh don't really make a whole lot of sense, and the only real disappointment is the underuse of Onigen and the underacting from Koyuki. It feels like, had this movie spent a little more time focusing on storytelling and performance and just a little less time on its set pieces, it would be a really good movie.But, let's discuss the set-pieces. This is a wire-fu martial arts movie, ultimately, and it should be credited for actually finding very unique and amazing set-pieces for the action to take place, as well as actually having them make sense. The chase over the rooftops, the battle on the precipitous truck, and Onigen's shadow world are great environments and really keep the eye dazzled while the swordplay and choreography do their trick. That said, again, now that the movie actually HAS a plot, it sort of makes the audience want more, so when a street-side brawl lasts longer than the Agent Smith burly brawl from The Matrix, it taxes patience. Worse is the CGI, which honestly hasn't been this bad since before 2005. Nahon makes a huge error by placing the CGI demons in clear view and not even bothering to try make-up or other effects. Meanwhile, the compositing on Onigen's sashes is awful, which is unfortunate considering how much the character herself has presence and grace in her better moments. A HUGE mistake is the CGI generated blood spurts, when the point is specifically made in the dialog that demon blood is different than human blood, but the viewer can never really tell the difference because it's all black spurts of globules in every case. There are missed opportunities here that I do not believe would have cost that much more if the director or possibly the producers had a little more patience.A real surprise is the score by Clint Mansell, who I did not even know in advance was the composer but definitely brought me right back to The Fountain. Mansell adds a delicious tonal quality to the movie that pulls the performances and the choreography together into the same epic mood by mixing themes from The Fountain into build-ups from The Matrix, meaning we get the feeling of epic characters struggling with their fates in a world of illusions before the dialog even tells us so.Ultimately, whether the anime was better or not, the ending impression of this movie is that it feels like the original was probably better.--PolarisDiB

kimchimofo first of all, why did they have a korean girl play saya. it's originally a Japanese series by Japanese writers and directors, so it just doesn't make sense. i got a big laugh out of the scene when saya first went to class and they said "they let a jap in here" ... NOT A JAP! secondly, they followed the storyline of the anime too closely. basically just adding the stuff about onigen and making into a live-action film. it would seem that in 90 minutes of live action, they could have gotten more creative, especially since blood+ was only about thirty something minutes. a real disappointment all around. in other words, dumb.