Blood and why it should be animated better
Right, so moths ago when I watched this movie I was planning on putting this up. I still think it sucks but I'm bored now so whatever. This is a play by play written during lags in the story and the commercial breaks, of which there were many.
So far, 15 minutes in, I am suitably impressed. The film correlates with the animated film nicely in that the opening trains scenes are the same and the following introduction of the secret organization and Saya's importance to them are revealed. In many films, the character would wear a sailor fuku as a shameless plug and as an excuse for perverts to pig out over a school girl, but as in the animated movie, Saya again has an excuse: she's infiltrating a 1970's military base school. But technically, the students at Kanto High School are non-uniform, so the organization's inclusion of it are rather lame.
I don't object to the backstory either. Unlike the original, where it was all very ambiguous and in the moment- in this moment, we have an obvious goal here for Saya, as well as a reason for her Japanese heritage. Demons seeking blood feed off humans and are lead by the most powerful demon, Onigen, and hide in human form. Saya's father, and thus her, are hunters charged to find and kill them, as narrated by her grandfather in a flashback sequence. Onigen killed her father, so she wants to kill Onigen and fulfill his legacy.
Flash forward to 1970 and she's infiltrating the high school. Two students are demons in disguise. I personally have to wonder how the demons placed themselves in there. Did they kill the real girls and replace them, or were they the girls all along and were bidding their time? As in the animation, the two have a run in with the human bystander to the battle, another student instead of the school nurse. in a rather contrived excuse to have a katana battle, the demon girls get the girl, Alice, to stay after Kendo practice. The two whip out a pair of katanas and attack, to Alice's shock, only to get chopped up by a curious Saya, who had noticed the two's aggression earlier and decided to break into the school records to look at their files. Interestingly, the demon chicks are named after the ones in the animated movie. Horrified, Alice flees to find her dad.
Meanwhile, Onigen has arrived, and in the form of an attractive Japanese woman with a fetish for psychically blowing people's heads off.
Demons are very slow. One would think that even in human guise, they would be a bit more impressive. Okay, so Alice, in an attempt to understand what she saw at the gym, has chased her kendo coach to a local bar. The over the top bartender from the animation is the same, but in a twist, she isn't the demon. When Alice talks to him, the coach reveals that he, as well as the rest of the bar patrons, are demons. Alice runs, somehow faster than two dozen supernaturals predators, and into the arms of Saya, who was watching the building, still in that ridiculous outfit. In an extremely franticly paced fight, Saya kills all the demons and keeps Alice out of harms way by throwing her around. There is no extra movement, which I approve of, because really, if you're going to fight, throwing in a spin of backflip you don't need is a waste of energy and time. In a move that impressed me, one of the demons transforms and gets away, attempting to escape by hitching a ride on a plane. Saya, driven by Alice, cuts it out of the air and watching it on the ground, feeds it a few drops of blood. ANd all at the 45 minute mark too, exactly the time length of the original.
Saya displays unusual empathy for Alice, although I suppose it's expected as her backstory her is that she is a sort of human fighting for humans instead of a vampire fighting for... well we don't really know as that wasn't delved into in the animation. Alice, arriving home, finds her father the general dying. After the incident at the gym, she told him what she saw, and he attempted to find out what the hell was going on. he had his men break into the organization unit sent with Saya's rooms and find a cleaning unit. One of the men in charge, Luke, is a bit of a stupid hothead, and shoots him in time for Alice to witness. Alice escapes to Saya's hotel to demand why the people she works did such a thing and it is reaffirmed that the only reason Saya is with them is so they can find Onigen for her. Luke has a sniper trained on the window and attempts to kill Alice, only for Saya to see and save her.
They drive off into the countryside, the radio playing to inform the audience that the general was found and that his daughter has run off, unstable. This is also a scene that proves either Saya can't drive or she is too injured from fighting Luke to drive. Either way, Alice loses it and goes off road and when her horrible road choice fails to wake and unconscious Saya in the passenger seat, Alice finds the one abandoned Japanese style cabin in the woods to nurse her in. Granted, Alice was watching the whole time when Saya was fighting and thus assuming that she was also some form of supernatural isn't a hard leap to make, assuming that she's also a blood-sucker is. Alice cuts her hand and feeds it to Saya, waking her and giving us more backstory.
Driving again, they run into the transformed second in command of Miss Demon Queen who wants revenge for Saya hacking out his eye. In the most unrealistic fight scene in the film, the truck falls off the highway into a crappily animated ravine. It's an unrealistically long drop and the fact that Alice managed not to get her neck broken is a miracle, even more so when the truck falls again from its wedged in perch between the two cliff walls to the ground. Saya wakes up to the past, the village where she used to live and encounters a toddler version of a friend. Alice immediately figures out that this isn't real, while Saya desperately wants to believe it is. Bing! wrong answer. Onigen shows up kimono-clad and declares that Saya has been killing her own kind and that she is her mother. The two fight and Saya wins. Alice, after taking the initiative to attack while Saya was in shock over her buddy-boy being fake, is beaten up. She wakes after to the inside of an ambulance where the police had found her after the truck had been found. Mimicking the scene at the end of the animated film, Alice is being interviewed to debrief her of what the hell is going on. Her fathers murder is explained as the lieutenant's handiwork in a fit of depression and Saya as an unknown who may not even be Japanese. Alice, it seems, can't take much more and in what seems to be a last thread of sanity breaking moment, grins and says that Saya is trying to find her way back from beyond the looking glass.
Surprisingly, Alice is less annoying then Saya. She keeps the pointless uselessness to a minimum, doesn't whine, steps up to the plate when she has to and comforts Saya without going overboard. Saya on the other hand, seems very broody. And she's still wearing that damn fuku. Granted, she's had a busy day and doesn't seem like the kind of person who cares about fashion over function, but functionally, wouldn't changing into a pait of pants offer freer movement and more protection then an ill-fitting baggy skirt? Actually, Alice is more badass then Saya. While Saya is in denial and freaking out over the illusion Onigen created of her childhood sweetie, Alice realizes that the world they're in is fake and actually attacks Onigen with a pitchfork. Saya whines a lot over her humanity while Alice deals in the moment and saves her panic attacks for later when she has time to deal with it.
Summation? It's okay. The CGI blows and I can't figure out why the hell all the demons are Asian aside from Sharon and Lisa. On the other hand, Saya explains my issue with whether they were playing invasion of the bodysnatchers or not. Apparently, they were always demons and no, they weren't so bitchy that no one noticed when they got replaced. Saya is very monologue-y and isn't as interesting as she was in the cartoon. Granted, the cartoon was 45 minutes so what we saw was what we got, but you would think that the extra time would allow to form a sort of bond. The organization, the Council, was less then useless and never showed up again after Saya cut Luke's arm off and Onigen was kind of boring. You would think that a badass uber-demon would be harder to kill and scarier, but no, not really.
So far, 15 minutes in, I am suitably impressed. The film correlates with the animated film nicely in that the opening trains scenes are the same and the following introduction of the secret organization and Saya's importance to them are revealed. In many films, the character would wear a sailor fuku as a shameless plug and as an excuse for perverts to pig out over a school girl, but as in the animated movie, Saya again has an excuse: she's infiltrating a 1970's military base school. But technically, the students at Kanto High School are non-uniform, so the organization's inclusion of it are rather lame.
I don't object to the backstory either. Unlike the original, where it was all very ambiguous and in the moment- in this moment, we have an obvious goal here for Saya, as well as a reason for her Japanese heritage. Demons seeking blood feed off humans and are lead by the most powerful demon, Onigen, and hide in human form. Saya's father, and thus her, are hunters charged to find and kill them, as narrated by her grandfather in a flashback sequence. Onigen killed her father, so she wants to kill Onigen and fulfill his legacy.
Flash forward to 1970 and she's infiltrating the high school. Two students are demons in disguise. I personally have to wonder how the demons placed themselves in there. Did they kill the real girls and replace them, or were they the girls all along and were bidding their time? As in the animation, the two have a run in with the human bystander to the battle, another student instead of the school nurse. in a rather contrived excuse to have a katana battle, the demon girls get the girl, Alice, to stay after Kendo practice. The two whip out a pair of katanas and attack, to Alice's shock, only to get chopped up by a curious Saya, who had noticed the two's aggression earlier and decided to break into the school records to look at their files. Interestingly, the demon chicks are named after the ones in the animated movie. Horrified, Alice flees to find her dad.
Meanwhile, Onigen has arrived, and in the form of an attractive Japanese woman with a fetish for psychically blowing people's heads off.
Demons are very slow. One would think that even in human guise, they would be a bit more impressive. Okay, so Alice, in an attempt to understand what she saw at the gym, has chased her kendo coach to a local bar. The over the top bartender from the animation is the same, but in a twist, she isn't the demon. When Alice talks to him, the coach reveals that he, as well as the rest of the bar patrons, are demons. Alice runs, somehow faster than two dozen supernaturals predators, and into the arms of Saya, who was watching the building, still in that ridiculous outfit. In an extremely franticly paced fight, Saya kills all the demons and keeps Alice out of harms way by throwing her around. There is no extra movement, which I approve of, because really, if you're going to fight, throwing in a spin of backflip you don't need is a waste of energy and time. In a move that impressed me, one of the demons transforms and gets away, attempting to escape by hitching a ride on a plane. Saya, driven by Alice, cuts it out of the air and watching it on the ground, feeds it a few drops of blood. ANd all at the 45 minute mark too, exactly the time length of the original.
Saya displays unusual empathy for Alice, although I suppose it's expected as her backstory her is that she is a sort of human fighting for humans instead of a vampire fighting for... well we don't really know as that wasn't delved into in the animation. Alice, arriving home, finds her father the general dying. After the incident at the gym, she told him what she saw, and he attempted to find out what the hell was going on. he had his men break into the organization unit sent with Saya's rooms and find a cleaning unit. One of the men in charge, Luke, is a bit of a stupid hothead, and shoots him in time for Alice to witness. Alice escapes to Saya's hotel to demand why the people she works did such a thing and it is reaffirmed that the only reason Saya is with them is so they can find Onigen for her. Luke has a sniper trained on the window and attempts to kill Alice, only for Saya to see and save her.
They drive off into the countryside, the radio playing to inform the audience that the general was found and that his daughter has run off, unstable. This is also a scene that proves either Saya can't drive or she is too injured from fighting Luke to drive. Either way, Alice loses it and goes off road and when her horrible road choice fails to wake and unconscious Saya in the passenger seat, Alice finds the one abandoned Japanese style cabin in the woods to nurse her in. Granted, Alice was watching the whole time when Saya was fighting and thus assuming that she was also some form of supernatural isn't a hard leap to make, assuming that she's also a blood-sucker is. Alice cuts her hand and feeds it to Saya, waking her and giving us more backstory.
Driving again, they run into the transformed second in command of Miss Demon Queen who wants revenge for Saya hacking out his eye. In the most unrealistic fight scene in the film, the truck falls off the highway into a crappily animated ravine. It's an unrealistically long drop and the fact that Alice managed not to get her neck broken is a miracle, even more so when the truck falls again from its wedged in perch between the two cliff walls to the ground. Saya wakes up to the past, the village where she used to live and encounters a toddler version of a friend. Alice immediately figures out that this isn't real, while Saya desperately wants to believe it is. Bing! wrong answer. Onigen shows up kimono-clad and declares that Saya has been killing her own kind and that she is her mother. The two fight and Saya wins. Alice, after taking the initiative to attack while Saya was in shock over her buddy-boy being fake, is beaten up. She wakes after to the inside of an ambulance where the police had found her after the truck had been found. Mimicking the scene at the end of the animated film, Alice is being interviewed to debrief her of what the hell is going on. Her fathers murder is explained as the lieutenant's handiwork in a fit of depression and Saya as an unknown who may not even be Japanese. Alice, it seems, can't take much more and in what seems to be a last thread of sanity breaking moment, grins and says that Saya is trying to find her way back from beyond the looking glass.
Surprisingly, Alice is less annoying then Saya. She keeps the pointless uselessness to a minimum, doesn't whine, steps up to the plate when she has to and comforts Saya without going overboard. Saya on the other hand, seems very broody. And she's still wearing that damn fuku. Granted, she's had a busy day and doesn't seem like the kind of person who cares about fashion over function, but functionally, wouldn't changing into a pait of pants offer freer movement and more protection then an ill-fitting baggy skirt? Actually, Alice is more badass then Saya. While Saya is in denial and freaking out over the illusion Onigen created of her childhood sweetie, Alice realizes that the world they're in is fake and actually attacks Onigen with a pitchfork. Saya whines a lot over her humanity while Alice deals in the moment and saves her panic attacks for later when she has time to deal with it.
Summation? It's okay. The CGI blows and I can't figure out why the hell all the demons are Asian aside from Sharon and Lisa. On the other hand, Saya explains my issue with whether they were playing invasion of the bodysnatchers or not. Apparently, they were always demons and no, they weren't so bitchy that no one noticed when they got replaced. Saya is very monologue-y and isn't as interesting as she was in the cartoon. Granted, the cartoon was 45 minutes so what we saw was what we got, but you would think that the extra time would allow to form a sort of bond. The organization, the Council, was less then useless and never showed up again after Saya cut Luke's arm off and Onigen was kind of boring. You would think that a badass uber-demon would be harder to kill and scarier, but no, not really.