Review of Rise: Blood Hunter (2007) by Robert B — 01 Sep 2007

Either a decent direct-to-dvd film, or a bad theatrical run film. It seems the producers felt that a bad theatrical run film was in the cards.

Liu stars as a young reporter who gets 'too involved' in one of her stories and winds up a vampire. In the fashion of 'Kill Bill' or 'The Crow' Liu goes on a revenge spree killing all the vampires who wronged her.

The film attempts to develop Liu's character through teary flesh eating scenes, and listless wandering through alleys. Liu does her best to elevate the character and her struggle, but is left with bad dialogue and a story that wants to be deeper and more emotionally involved, but doesn't know how. The attempts at dramatizing the preceeding take away from the pacing (read action and style) that could have been focused on instead. Screenwriter/Director Gutierrez (he wrote Snakes on a Plane folks) tries to balance style and meaning, but fails with both. We're given a mystic wise man who helps Liu on her journey, a grieving father/detective 'Chicklis' to develope a weird (awkward) love interest in, and a series of weird cameos (Nick Lachey, Carla Gugino, Marilyn Manson, Simon Rex).

Although these elements elevate the camp value of the film, they do little to progress the narrative or appeal.

This is worth a late night television watch, little more.