... of glowsticks & dice

Azumi
Thursday, April 12, 2007

Ingredients:
One female samurai
Many male samurai
One homosexual samurai
Ninjas

Add female samurai to male samurai. Divide by 2. Add ninjas. Subtract ninjas. Add homosexual samurai. Subtract all male samurai. Subtract homosexual samurai. What is left?

Azumi, that's what is left. Here's a warning that goes for all past, present, and future posts: spoilers left, right, and center! If you have any intent of watching this movie anytime soon, don't read this. Or read it, and then drink yourself into a coma straight after. Your choice.

Azumi starts with Azumi (surprise), still a child at this point in the movie, being found by a bunch of homeless samurai whilst mourning next to her mother's dead body. They take her in and soon she has become a fully respected member of the hobo clan. They then train for about ten years, and as quoted from wikipedia:

Azumi is raised in the martial skills of samurai and shinobi sword fighting,
sashimi cooking, wasabi tolerating, ohayo saying, kamikaze flying, and the art
of assassination.

Upon reaching the end of their training, the ten warriors are lined up by their sensei and made to choose their bestest friend as a partner. Each are then made to fight each other - to the death! In a scene reminiscent of Battle Royale, the hobo clan is struck with confusion, but since sensei is such a friendly chap, they do him this favour. Way to get rid of half your cast.
The remaining five return to the great wise sensei, who is not to be questioned, and are assigned their mission. Azumi and her gang are to kill three evil warlords because of some promise somebody made, some time ago. Before they can do that, however, they need to watch as a village chock-full of women and children are mercilessly slaughtered by some completely unrelated people. A ninja appears out of nowhere, makes an inside joke with sensei, then disappears again.

The first warlord is easily dispatched during a fishing trip, but the second warlord is under the protection of a troupe of ninjas, led by a half-monkey, half-man ninja lord. The movie does not proceed to make clear in any way the reason why this man has a monkey face, but in a movie full of historical facts, who am I to question? I have seen monkeys perform tricks before.
Azumi and the gang proceed to kill who they think is the warlord, but turns out to be his double, and in revenge the man opens up a case of ninja and throws them all over the movie. When Azumi is done killing them all, only one man can turn the tide: a homosexual samurai. Immune to her charm, and also quite good with a sword, he kills one or two of the gang and retreats to a town full of pirates, leaving a trail of rose petals behind. Female samurai, ninjas, pirates; can this movie get any better?

Yes it can! Sensei and the remaining men go on ahead and invade the pirate town. They manage to kill a lot of ninjas and even more pirates, but eventually sensei is captured and his men killed by the gay samurai. Good for him that Azumi was trailing behind, picking flowers and dancing with the butterflies. She moves in and confronts the girly swordsman whilst behind her, one of her buddies rises from the dead and further explains the kamikaze concept as he tightens his bomb girdle and blows up the ninja monkey. Azumi commits hate crime and slays her gay assailant, rescues her sensei, kills the warlord, but sensei dies anyway. Movie ends!

Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (who later did Godzilla part 28) in 2003, this is 142 minutes of people dying. Kill Bill doesn't even come close to the sheer volume of people killed in this movie, nor can I think of many other movies that do. For this reason alone, it's worth watching. Add the fact that Azumi is not an unattractive samurai and there's a ninja monkey teaming up with pirates, and it becomes much more than that. Arigato!

Final rating:
Four stars!
Azumi, you silly movie, who wants to watch a hot chick killing hundreds of people with swords? Wait, everyone does! They've even made a sequel!