Japanese action flick. Odd, odd movie. Basically criminals against zombies against vampires against immortal beings... I bought the director's cut on the recommendation of a friend, and it's one of the most interesting movies I've seen in some time. This movie could have been a very good film. Unfortunately, cinematography wasn't in the budget for the whole film it seems. Some of the camera angles and scenes are well thought out and very dynamic, but others plainly stink...on ice. Main character's hair length changes, too. He also shows too many shades of Toshiro Mifune in his character...there's a fine line between 'cool' and 'acting stupid'. Some of the shots look like a bad music video- not many, but there are some. But in comparison, some shots are really quite good, I like the use of filters to change mood in a couple of scenes. The lack of sets other than a forest is an old trick but works well. On the plus side, there are some solid scripting hooks in the film...like the first scene isn't explained until almost the end of the film, and then it surprises heck out of you, because what you think will happen certainly doesn't. The acting in these two scenes, for example, is pretty darn good, whereas other scenes have the actors acting goofy, for want of a better word, that makes me think that some work prints got made into scenes when the budget got thin. Too bad, the movie had potential to be more than it is. Still a fun film, and like I say, interesting, but some of the comic releif is too heavy, and in the wrong spots. Still, I gotta say I enjoyed it. There was some gore just for the sake of gore, and some of it comes across pretty lame because of it. Some effects make-up was quite good, and other effects like this were very bad. Maybe a shortcoming of the natural light they filmed in? I dunno, I'm not a film student. Despite all these things that I didn't like, I really can't say it's "bad", some of it's just misguided, nobody told the director when enough was too much. The martial arts scenes where enjoyable, too. There's one good clip where they go from an Asian martial art to boxing and back again smoothly. Soundtrack is kind of guitar driven techno, which I must have heard too much of when I went to clubs :gt: But it meshes with the action sequences well. Anyone else seen this film? I'm dying to get other folk's impressions of this bit of film-making.
