This
vampire tale bears some superficial commonalities with Underworld, but it is exponentially gorier, with a fraction of the
logic. It was written and directed by Sion Sono, so look out. Humanity’s extinction
is imminent, but the Dracula and Corvin vampire clans are still battling like
its Y2K in Sion Sono’s feature-length edit of his television series, Tokyo Vampire Hotel (trailer here), which screened during the 2018 Fantasia International Film Festival.
Manami
is the last chosen one, who was born at a fateful hour and fed ultra-powerful
vampire blood. She is supposed to be the difference maker, who will help the
old world, crucifix-fearing Draculas overcome the crass, nihilistic Corvens,
but she knows nothing about her true self or prophesized destiny. She thought
she would be celebrating her twenty-second birthday with friends, but instead a
heavily-armed vampire assassin arrives to massacre the entire restaurant, most
definitely including Manami.
“Fortunately,”
K, a trusted Dracula enforcer, arrives in time to “save” Manami. Of course, it
is probably safe to say neither clan really has her best interests at heart. Nevertheless,
Manami’s lack off trust allows the Corvens to capture her, whisking the strange
hybrid women off to their Japanese base of operations, the Hotel Requiem. It is
a busy time in the undead hotel. The Corvens have lured a large assembly of
shallow, entitled party people into their clutches, so their sexual couplings
will help provide the vampires’ mojo after the impending Armageddon. Naturally,
K will go in after her, with mucho bloodshed resulting.
Arguably,
Sono’s cobbled together feature edit is more coherent than its reputation
suggests. The first half-hour exactly matched the opening of the series.
Presumably, that is also true of the non-stop carnage of the final hour. Yes,
the mid-section is a bit patchy, but everyone should be able to get the gist of
it.
One
thing you can’t miss is the massive action chops and uber-femme fatale screen
presence of Kaho [Indo] as the supernaturally formidable K. Holy cats dude, is
she ever something. She is like Kim Ok-vin in The Villainess, but with a taste for blood. On the other hand, Ami
Tomite is shockingly poignant as Manami, even when she is tearing Corvens limb-from-limb.
Frankly,
there is probably more blood per frame in TVH
than in Sono’s Why Don’t You Play in Hell, which is really saying something. In some ways, the narrative echoes
that of Bad Film, but Sono fully
capitalizes on the bloody possibilities of vampirism.
