therealronaldorivera

I really wanted to like this. First 15-20 minutes made me feel like it could be inspired by a mix of John Wick and The Crow (original). They raised the stakes by what happened to the protagonist but we never really get the payoff from the build up. He is inexplicably invincible, even when he wants you to believe he's hurt and sadly the villains never really die. Speaking of which, they are evil to the core but then they have little back stories to make it seem like they have some sort of honour. There are some cool action sequences, and performance around the Samurai culture but overall I found this movie weird and ultimately disappointing. I had to watch John Wick after to scratch the vengeance itch it gave me.

It's like a mashup of the original and 2004 mini series with a hint of 30 Days of Night. I enjoyed these movies, so I was not disappointed. Cast did a great job and the special effects weren't overdone. Some characters probably could have been fleshed out a bit more I think like Striker and the Glicks, but I do appreciate the pacing and the airtime vampires got. I couldn't tell if Striker had vampire-like abilities already from the abduction scene, either that or he was also a trained ninja. Overall I really liked what they've done here, and could rewatch it again like I do with the original and mini series.

Also, this movie could easily double as the origin story of Blade and Whistler 😆