MOVIE
The Gist: Akira meets Buffy
$24.95 DVD
The brilliance of Blood: The Last Vampire is in the details. This digitally rendered feature blends meticulously drawn characters and backgrounds with computer-generated 3-D models and lighting effects for rich, gritty visuals.
The movie follows Saya, the last of an ancient breed of vampire hunters, as she goes undercover. Her mission is to root out the shape-shifting beasts that are terrorizing a high school. Saya, voiced by Snow Falling on Cedars' Youki Kodoh, by turns hisses threats and sounds the fragile young girl. Set on an American Air Force base in Japan during the Vietnam War, the film opts for realism, and most of the dialogue is in English - a boon to audiences outside the Pacific Rim, as first-rate voice acting has been the bane of dubbed anime.
But if the plot doesn't revolutionize the genre, Blood's look will. The creative team, led by Akira animator turned director Hiroyuki Kitakubo and Ghost in the Shell alums, strikes an impeccable balance between manual and digital art: A photo-realistic Hercules transport plane is pursued by a hand-drawn winged demon. The scene is positively arresting. Combining 2-D and 3-D isn't new, but the characters in previous films seemed like cardboard cutouts in a CGI world. Blood's disparate styles complement each other seamlessly.
Catch Blood at the Resfest (www.resfest.com) in New York (October 10 to 14) and Los Angeles (October 25 to 28). Or pick up the DVD, which features the original Japanese trailers.
Manga Entertainment: www.manga.com/blood.
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