Azumi

Ryuhei Kitamura has developed quite a large cult following due to his massively entertaining genre-busting zombie/yakuza/martial arts hybrid film "Versus". Now he has given us "Azumi", a samurai film with a rock music soundtrack and young, attractive leads.

The film follows a clan of ten young assassins trained since childhood to carry out a special mission. Azumi, the lone female in the group is considered the most skilled of them all. Their master is an ex-samurai warrior who acts as a father figure to the teens. The assassins await the day of their mission with growing anticipation, until the day it finally presents itself. Their mission is to kill a shogun who is threatening to overthrow the ruling class of Japan. Quick to overestimate their own abilities, the assassins find their numbers dwindling as they battle the shogun's warriors including the sometimes-honorable, sometimes-manic ninja Saru and a mysterious feminine Samurai clad in white who's so good he has "never had to defend an attack". As things start going downhill for the assassins, Azumi begins to doubt herself and begins to long for the life of a normal Japanese woman.

This film is all about sword-fights and Kitamura delivers more than he probably should. People take on hundreds of swordsmen single-handedly and buckets of bright red gore are splashed about with every sword slash. While these fights are entertaining at first, they grow tedious as the hundredth person is killed. Not only that, but our heroes do not show any sort of skill that gives us reason to believe that they are capable of killing dozens of men effortlessly. Also, Kitamura has trouble finding the right lengths for his films. "Versus", "Alive" and "Azumi" are too long, while "Heat After Dark" is much too short. I really think if 10 minutes of slow-motion sword fights were cut this movie would flow much better.

Now, "Azumi" is not a bad movie, by any means. It's very entertaining, just a tad tedious. The characters are very unique and developed quite nicely, and Kitamura has a knack for giving us exciting camera angles. Although it does not live up to "Versus" (I didn't expect it to, and never compared the two until now) "Azumi" is still an entertaining film, and any fans of "Versus" should find "Azumi" a very good time. 7/10

If you're looking for a nice change to the regular martial arts fare coming from Hollywood these days, Azumi is a refreshing film.

The Villains, while still a little stereotypical are just psychotic enough to be fun.

The action is well paced, and the story adequate to drive the film towards it's inevitable climatic scenes.

The timing used during many of the fight scenes feels a little different to your typical Hollywood work, it's hard to pick the exactly difference, but it leaves you with a strangely different feel to the action on screen. The effects are great, the sets are great. I enjoyed the soundtrack, with scene changes often resulting in a sudden change in ambient sound - something that standard films tend to cover with sound or cross fades.

Overall a good solid film, don't expect an Oscar winning narrative, but the action is worth the watch.

I'm completely blown away, easily one of the coolest movies I've seen in a long time. This is the third Kitamura film I have viewed, and out of the three (the others were Heat After Dark and Versus), I can honestly say I believe this to be his best.

Don't get me wrong, I love Versus. It's a great film, but this one trumps it on nearly every level. From the first 10 minutes I was hooked, and it never let up.

This film boasts some of the best action sequences in recent memory, especially if you love samurai films. The movement of characters is unreal, some of the smoothest wirework I've ever seen. It feels very much like a living anime.

Anyway, seek this film out and buy it! Don't rent it, just buy it! You will thank me for it.

I'll be quick. The photo is sometimes fantastic and usually great. Cgi is nice, but is too cheap/flawed in some occasions, one example is the birds in the beginning.

I can't decide on an opinion on the fight scenes, either the choreography is quite bad and editing is good at hiding that, or editing wastes choreography.

Story is silly, but it should be, I got no problem with that.

Acting is acceptable for this kind of movie, is think. Sometimes it really stinks, but I blame the director for that.

Directing, the directing is a real disappointment, terrible. Timing is often way off. Characters are undeveloped and some scenes are composed really bad.

Overall good movie but with uneven quality. Best guess is that they just ran out of money.

I think that this movie is not just about warriors...is about their choices..power to accept that the good sometimes become evil... what is good some peoples it's bad for others...some scenes are so beautiful that they can make you cry... I think I can see this movie a million times for the man in white and the woman in black...to understand which of them is the good one and what is evil one...to understand the power of red color...The Japanese made from this film a paint same as "Hero".. Maybe for the majority of people who experienced this movie it's just an action movie but for me is a very special... See this film because first of all is a very entertaining!