At the end of the 19th Century, immigrants come into England, not all of them gentle. One such immigrant is the evil Dracula who claims his first victim, Miss Lucy Westenra. Her three suitors call for help from Dr Van Helsing, but it is too late and she turns to vampire. They set out to kill her for good, but can they prevent Dracula claiming his next victim - Westenra's cousin Mina?
As part of my approach to films, I try to not just watch the big new releases or the well known smaller films, but I'll give things a try even if I know little about them but they sound OK. I'll admit that I have been burnt by this on many occasions but this time it worked out for the best. I'm not a big ballet fan, but I enjoyed this film as it mixed the ballet into a story that was told very easily though dance and closed captions. The fact that it was a very cinematic ballet really helped me get into it - the film's style is a homage of sorts to silent film, in it's filming, caption cards and whole look. I like this and it made it more interesting to me. Even the exaggerated looks on he casts' faces reminded me of the silent movies.
The actual ballet in the film is mixed. Some scenes are excellent and flow so very easily, the best by far being Dracula's final dance with Mina. However other parts are not so strong and the motion is not well captured by the camera, which itself seems to want to get in on all the motion and doesn't stay still long enough to really let the eye take in the movement. Happily this is the minority of the scenes as most of it is very nice to watch.
The direction of the ballet is good, but so is the direction of the film. The style captures the silent era well but also has enough clever touches in it to keep it fresh. The tinting of frames and selective use of colour make for interesting flourishes without over doing it. The cast also do reasonably well but are mixed. Zhang is magnificent in both his portrayal of Dracula and his ballet. Most of he rest of the cast do well, but only Birtwhistle (Westenra) and Moroni (Helsing) really stand out for their skills and characters. The support has no weak links in fairness and everyone does what is required of them.
The bottom line is, if you don't like ballet, then you probably won't like this film. If you do like ballet and also like cinema then you should take something from this. For me, I enjoyed the ballet as part of the story telling process but also got a kick out of seeing a silent movie version of Dracula done with modern touches.
