Azumi Film Review

I am not sure if this qualifies as a guilty pleasure of mine, but I sure love this film. A guilty pleasure is usually associated with a bad film, but this is by no means bad - but it is absurdly ridiculous and the more ridiculous it gets, the more I love it. It hits its zenith of absurdity near the end when Azumi (Az-u-mi) who weighs about as much as a wet fluffy towel and is as tall as a bar stool faces around one-hundred mad frothing killers and instead of running away - runs right at them and over the next few minutes slices, dices and dismembers them like so many weeds in your backyard. She goes through them like I do a pint of chocolate almond ice cream. And it is as delicious. But best of all is when one of them doesn't realize that she has cut through his neck until he turns around and his head doesn't - then she turns her back on him and behind her we see his head finally fall off his shoulders. A perfect exclamation point.

I guess director Ryûhei Kitamura intentionally chose Aya Ueto to play Azumi because there was no one shorter and no one cuter. She is the proverbial bug in a rug with a face that you would expect to find in a soap commercial but it is a face that only gets more appealing the more blood that is applied to it. This film has enough CGI blood to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. No one dies bloodless. One shot is from below a wooden platform and Azumi is on top doing her thing and the blood just flows between the boards. My version of the film was nearly 2.5 hours (IMDB has it at 128 minutes) and much of Japan is depopulated in that time.

It takes place during the reign of the Shogunate Ieyasu in the 1500's - after the battle of Sekigahara in which the Tokugawa Clan defeated the Toyotomi Clan and ruled Japan. But the Toyotomi Clan though defeated still has aspirations to make a comeback and install Prince Hideyori on the throne. To stop this constant warfare, Gessai (Yoshio Harada) is ordered to form a band of ten assassins to kill warlords if they cause trouble. Rather than gathering the best killers that he can find, he instead takes on young children and trains them over the next number of years. Azumi is the only female but considered to be the fastest of them.

Graduation Day comes and he tells them that they are ready to start their mission. Kill three warlords who are attempting to support the Prince. Oh, but first - one last test. Break into groups of two with your best friend - and kill each other - unless you are willing to kill your friend, you will never be a great assassin. Ok. Not that I would question a great Samurai, but this feels foolish - a poor return on your investment of many years. And there are definitely a few times to come when those five dead assassins would have come in handy. Maybe a Team A and a Team B would have been a better choice.

From this point on with only a few breathers, it is a killing field. The first Warlord is easy. He is just fishing with a few guards around him and when this cute girl in a short skirt shows up asking about fishing, he happily invites her to try. He looks to be a nice guy and after she throws a cloth over his head and guts him, he says "So young. I feel sorry for you". But the second Warlord (Naoto Takenaka) realizes he is next on the list and prepares for them with masses of men and an insane campy killer eunuch dressed in white (Joe Odagiri) who carries a rose as he kills. This is as far away from a traditional samurai film as you can run - it is just absurd entertainment when traditional samurai films were somewhat passé. There is a sequel.