Been Watching: Vampire Shadows (2005)

AKA: Shira The Samurai Vampire.

Medieval Japan: A young samurai woman is attacked by vampires and chooses death rather than become one of the undead. 

Present day: Shira and her team of vampire hunters seek out and destroy the forces of darkness.

    Ever had this happen to you? -  You pick a film for the evening's entertainment and you select  something that looks like it might be entertaining.
But then you pop it into the DVD player. And start watching.
And the other people watching turn to stare at you with the cold, hard eyes of  disappointment.
"You picked this." they think. "You are the one responsible for this godawful piece of ratshit."
And you know they will never trust your opinion ever again. 

 That's what this film did to me and not only will it take years to repair the damage but that's £8 I'll never see again.

   In the interest of fairness, I eventually managed to sit through it all. It took me three goes and dear gods it was hard work. Up until this point the worst vampire movie I'd ever seen was Razorblade Smile  but at least Eileen Daly filled out her catsuit in a way that was pleasing to the eye. Vampire Shadows doesn't even have that going for it.
   So what's wrong with this film, exactly?
 To begin with, ten minutes in I had to hit pause and see when it was actually made. I was mildly amazed to see that it was made in 2005 because everything about it screams "Early 90s Low Budget." - the dubious lighting, the overmuscled male lead, the snearing bad guy, even the fight choreography - are like something Andy Sidaris would do if he wanted to do a horror film.
  Mind you, he'd put more boobs in it.
 The storyline is curiously familiar too. Half-human, half-vampire plus sidekicks versus a vampire chieftain out to create a race of "daywalker" vampires.
  I think I've seen that movie.

Even the poster is a ripoff

 So, a "Blade" wannabe minus Wesley Snipes in badass mode, the effects, Kris Kristofferson, the cutting edge fight scenes and pretty much every thing else that made that film good.
 It does have Adrian Zmed though.
 That probably stopped being a marketing bonus about a week after "TJ Hooker" was taken off the air.   
 The rest of the cast is made up of unknowns, some of whom can sorta act.  Interestingly, a few do seem to know what they are doing when given a samurai sword and the swordplay is OK in places.
 And that leads me to the next problem.  Heroine Shira is clearly meant to be some sort of badass and wears a leather catsuit to prove it. However, while being petite never stopped Buffy being a credible vamp-hunter, Chona Jason has neither the acting chops nor moves to pull it off.
 Plus, a heroine who needs to be rescued at least twice? Not really impressed.
 I could also have done without the woeful attempts at a vampire/human romance, the comedy black sidekick who talks in what middle-aged whiteys imagine Hood-speak to be and one of the most embarassing Stripper Auditions ever commited to film.
 This is not a good film. This is not even an entertaining bad film.
 Now who do I see about getting my £8 back? 

 And now some pictures in a blatant attempt to get some Google traffic coming my way.

 Ninja Vampires - Quite a cool idea wasted on this film.

What the director thinks: "No last name. Yeah. That's edgy and cool, right?"

What the audience thinks:  "He doesn't want to put his name on this? It's gonna be shite"

 Shira makes her big entrance. I have no idea why she's wearing sunglasses.

 Adrian Zmed wonders how the hell he got talked into this. 

A black woman wonders who Adrian Zmed actually is

Meanwhile her mate forgets that she's not supposed to look at the frigging camera. 

 And the sidekicks get ready to kick some vamp ass.