| Blood: The Last Vampire | ||||||||||||||||||||
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you like your animation realistic, bloody, and short, you're in for a wild
ride. by Jürgen Fauth |
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Blood: The Last Vampire is the latest entry in a series of would-be Japanese Animation crossover titles to hit American theaters. Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Princess Mononoke, and the recent Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade all garnered critical praise and developed cult followings, and there has been growing recognition for artists like Hayao Miyazaki, whose back-catalog was bought by Disney and is scheduled for American release with new dubs. And yet, maybe in the face of menaces like Pokemon, Digimon, and Whatever-mon and a persistent mistrust for drawings as anything but a kiddie medium, the general public has yet to accept anime. It is safe
to say that Blood: The Last Vampire, currently playing in New York,
won't do the trick of bringing animation to the masses either. The story,
which concerns the fight of a mysterious girl against bloodsucking monsters
in 1966 Vietnam, is promising because as often in anime, characters are
rendered with a complex maturity not common in American animation: the
story is at once realistic and fantastic. Unfortunately, there is too
little of it here: the film is only 48 minutes long. We get a setup and
a mighty climax, but the story feels as little developed as you would
expect. The press kit explains that there is more to the concept and that
the characters are further explored in video games, comic books, and a
novel -- but frankly, I can do without the synergy and would have preferred
a feature-length film that can succeed on its own merits. |
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The animation, however, is truly remarkable. As in Akira and Ghost in the Shell, the aesthetic is flashy to the extreme: ever single shot seems orchestrated to dazzle with a special effect. Wire fences shake, the camera swoops, and a stunning array of digital lightning effects create ghostly halos in every color. On purely visual terms, Blood is candy. Its washed-out look (akin to Lain and Jin-Roh) and the grim violence make for a sharp contrast to the usual bright colors of cheaper made-for-TV anime and Miyazaki's comfortably sunny work. Make no mistake: Blood is a horror flick, filled with sharp-toothed monsters, flashing samurai blades, and severed limbs. I found myself intrigued by the Blood's slick surface, and whole-heartedly recommend it to fanciers of the genre for its state-of-the-art animation -- it's a wild ride that lasts slightly longer than an IMAX film and looks better than anything I've ever seen in 3-D glasses. But if you are among those who are not convinced that drawn stories can be as compelling as acted ones, you are better off waiting for the next big crossover hope and let Saya fight on her own.
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