Blood: The Last Vampire Live-action

Yeah, I'm slow to catch up. Apparently, news of the live-action adaptation of Production I.G.'s Blood: The Last Vampire anime film became official way back in 2006.

Bill Kong, producer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (one of my favorite kung fu movies), will produce the film, along with Ronny Yu. The latter was previously called to direct the movie but the directing helm has since been granted to Chris Nahon.

The movie will star Korean actress, Jun Ji-Hyun (My Sassy Girl) -- Gianna Jun -- as the 400-year-old half-human, half-vampire, Saya. Apparently, the entire script is in English...so it should be fun listening to the accents.

Anyway, I wasn't too interested in the movie at first because I knew that the chances of it getting shown in my country is close to nil. But recently, I got interested in Koyuki, the Japanese actress who got to kiss Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, and from my fangirlish obsession for news of her latest projects, I found that she's going to appear in the movie as well.

Koyuki will play a powerful vampire that will do battle against Saya

it's an unwritten rule: all vampires are gorgeous

There are basically two reasons why I should watch the live-action adaptation of Blood: The Last Vampire. One is, of course, the film is one of the better anime movies that I have ever seen. The other reason is that I love Koyuki.

I'm not so much into Japanese dramas or movies (I am prone to watch Chinese films mainly because of the wuxia elements) so I didn't really know her before The Last Samurai. I liked her character in that movie but I kind of forgot about the actress afterwards. It was only recently, when I decided to pick up the manga, Kimi wa Petto, that I stumbled upon her name again.

The drama based on the manga became Koyuki's first lead role in Japanese TV. In there, she played a role that was different from Taka in The Last Samurai. I thought the difference was interesting, so I wondered if she was a good actress. I mean, she does know how to cry but that's not the only measure. So I watched Engine, a family-oriented, feel-good drama where she stars alongside Takuya Kimura ( ♥ ~). The drama is one of my favorite Japanese dramas to date -- not that I've seen a lot of Japanese dramas. I can count them all in one hand. Then, I watched Laundry, a whimsical film that's a little like Forrest Gump and I Am Sam.

In all these works so far, I've seen Koyuki perform as:

• a cool but occasionally clumsy career woman
• a tragic noblewoman who goes through the unspeakable shame of taking care of the man who killed her Samurai husband
• an uptight, meddling but well-meaning teacher
• a depressive, suicidal kleptomaniac

But I've never seen her do action. If I ever do get around to watching Blood: The Last Vampire when it is released in March 2009, that would mark my first seeing her do an actual fight scene. Has she done action before? I don't think she has. Okay, now I'm getting excited. 2009 is a long way off.

MORE INFO:

Blood: The Last Vampire (live-action) Wikipedia Entry
Blood: The Last Vampire (2008 live-action) @ IMDB
Blood: The Last Vampire Images