Whatever happened to the vampire of old, that graveyard variety coffin-napping jugular puncturer with an allergy to garlic and Christianity? Nowadays they’re all boy-band pretty, sensitive, new-age ghouls (Twilight), simian CG zombies who’d sooner headbutt your car than drain your circulatory system (I Am Legend), or wire-fu punching bags for homicidal waifs in fetish outfits (Underworld). Sadly, Blood: The Last Vampire trickles lifelessly into the latter category, quite possibly washing away the nascent international careers of its two Asian female stars with it.

Originating in Japan as a cross-media narrative that began with a 50-minute animated feature and concluded in subsequent novels, comics and video games, this foreign live action version had originally been set up for Ronny Yu to direct but eventually fell into the hands of French commercial and music video helmer Chris Nahon, whose Kiss of the Dragon was one of Jet Li's less wasteful forays outside of Hong Kong. Another Li collaborator, Fearless screenplay contributor Chris Chow, supplies the script.

South Korean actress Jeon Ji-hyun (or “Gianna” as she wants the world to know her) stars in her first English-language role as Saya, a sword-wielding demon slayer in 1970s Japan who, like many fantasy Asian girlfriends, is eternally 16 and perpetually clad in school uniform. Her half-vampire DNA gives her the speed and strength necessary to terminate her monstrous brethren on behalf of the Council, a secret society dedicated to protecting humanity from the threat of extinction at the hands of boss demon Onigen (played by Koyuki, best known to international audiences as Tom Cruise's love interest in The Last Samurai). We aren’t told why she wants to eradicate her favourite snack, or the identity of the Elders who guide the Council: write your guesses on the back of a postcard (there’s plenty of space left on the one the script was written on).

Chow lightly spackles the gaps between major fight scenes with clichéd exposition and depth-free characterization, before a deflating balloon of an ending elevates the proceedings to Uwe Boll-like levels of incoherence. Romantic comedy veteran Jeon has trouble selling Saya’s ferociousness but still shows glimpses of her ability to carry better films than this one. Although her Japanese dialogue is quite obviously dubbed, the quality of her American-accented English is far superior to that of Koyuki who is fortunately absent for much of the film. Also fortunately someone at least had the good sense to cast Yasuaki Kurata, an action movie legend in both Hong Kong and his homeland of Japan, as Saya’s mentor Kato. Despite his role being little more than an extended cameo, he puts everyone else to shame in the film’s best scene in which he single-handedly takes on a horde of ninja (black costumes must be cheaper than fangs). Computer-aided trickery and wire-assisted anti-gravity are no match for a charismatic martial artist.

With only a few recognizable faces amidst a cast of unknowns, Chinese and Argentinian locations passed off as Japan, not to mention the jerky and unconvincingly rendered CG as well as some uninspired creature design and makeup, it’s obvious that the filmmakers weren’t working with a Hollywood budget despite their designs on that market. It ends with the customary hints at a possible sequel, but the film’s Japanese title Last Blood says it all. Don Brown