Is it a retro 1970s vibe, or sloppy workmanship? Either way, it looks lumpen...

The live-action version of Hiroyuki Kitakubo's animated feature steps back in time to the 1970s.

Against a backdrop of the Vietnam conflict, a very different battle rages in Tokyo between humans and vampires, the latter dispatched with spurts of cartoonish, computer-generated blood.

As the fanged fiends take on their demonic form, a miasma of clumsy digital effects allows the bloodsuckers to take flight and soar over the rooftops of their hunting-ground.

Is it a retro 1970s vibe, or sloppy workmanship? Either way, it looks lumpen.

Chris Chow's meandering screenplay isn't much better, continually interrupting the narrative flow with flashbacks to flesh out the central character's back-story.

The unintentional hilarity reaches a crescendo when the heroines drive a truck into a ravine, wedge the vehicle between the sheer cliff-faces, then defy gravity to fight a winged demon.

The film opens on the Tokyo underground where beautiful 17-year-old Saya (Gianna Jun) conceals a terrible secret.

She is a halfling, the product of a marriage between a human father and vampire mother, doomed to suffer the same bloodlust as the creatures of the night she detests.

Armed with her trusty samurai sword, Saya works for a clandestine organisation called The Council, vowing to eradicate vampires, especially the all-powerful matriarch, Onigen (Koyuki).

Undercover on a US Air Force military base, Saya strikes up an unlikely friendship with Alice (Allison Miller) as she begins to clean up the local vampire infestation.

Meanwhile, Onigen prepares to lure our mournful heroine to her doom.

Blood: The Last Vampire boasts some well-orchestrated action sequences, including a fast-paced skirmish in a forest laden with fallen leaves.

The body count is absurdly high as Saya dismembers every snarling adversary in sight, building to a face-off with Onigen that doesn't live up to the promise.

This aims for the jugular, but next to the Blade, it doesn't quite make the cut.

Rating 3/5