Review: Azumi

Released in Japan in 2003, Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, the man behind the cult hit Versus. I saw this film back in 2005, and I've recently seen it again (along with the not-so-impressive sequel), and so I found it warrants a short review, mainly since most people have never heard of it, I think it deserves a bit of praise for its valiant efforts.

The simple plot begins during Japan's feudal era. A master swordsman, Gessai (Yoshio Harada), is charged with taking ten children up into the mountains to raise and train as assassins. Their mission will be to kill any warlord who may be considering more senseless carnage through out their region.

At first the ten young warrior are excited about venturing out into the world. They've grown up together and vowed never to leave each other's side. But their renegade samurai master needs them hardened for battle, and so their first task is to pair off -- and kill one another!

The first thing the five remaining warriors stumble across is a village, overrun by marauders. They wish to help, but their master forbids them; this is small potatoes compared to their real mission.
And so each untested youth goes through a painful awakening of some sort, and each begins to question his or her purpose. The rest of the movie depicts one amazing battle after another, in the end, leaving hundreds of bloody corpses, all leading up to an epic final showdown.

Azumi is pure exploitation on every level, from the teenage girl eye candy (common in many manga) to the clean, cartoonish violence. In one scene, the camera circles around two fighters, dipping below them and soaring over their heads like a Ferris wheel.

Azumi is slick, violently beautiful and appeals directly to the lower sensations. But just because it thrills doesn't necessarily mean it's artless. The tone is bleak and the comic-book violence is relentless, but the wirework and Yuta Morokaji's stunt choreography are fairly impressive, all culminating in a big-budget showdown between the title character and an army of 200 samurai warriors.

By the end of it, Azumi becomes the ultimate samurai-mercenary-revenge movie, I recommend it to anyone who's a fan of the genre.