I discovered Azumi recently, a week ago. How? I forgot. Another ninja splatter-punk Japanese movie, I thought to myself, a pale imitation of Kozure Ookami. But since it's $7 for 5 movies at the local video shop, and I was having great trouble selecting a fifth movie...
Oh dear, how wrong I was!
The opening scene is straight out of a classical print by I forgot whom, showing Tokugawa no Ieyasu having a nightmare. He is in Hell, surrounded by the mountains of rotting corpses for which he is responsible. "Never again!" swears Gessei, who has survived through those bloody times of civil war. And so he sets about training a team of assassins. Their mission: kill anyone who plans to plunge Japan back into civil war again. I blanched at the cruelty of the first episode, when the ten teenager assassins are ordered to slaughter their best team mates. That is when I realized that Azumi was not your run-of-mill blood-and-gore manga-inspired movie. That it was profoundly disturbing and meaningful. Feeling confirmed in the next episode, where the five remaining youngsters are forbidden by their master to intervene in a fight where samurais are butchering defenseless villagers. From then on, I watched, entranced, and, contrary to many, I was rather inclined to fast-forward through the battle scenes, however skillfully done they were, for I saw them as mere padding, distractions from the main story.
Some of the baddies turn out to be rather nice chaps. Such as this warlord peacefully fishing when Azumi and her team mates turn up to assassinate him. Even as the Great Lord he is, he cheerfully ignores Azumi's disrespectful language (you have to know Japanese to understand how rude she is) and offers to teach her fishing. Death is his reward. Another one is Saru, who mercifully kills Hyuga to spare him a slow, painful death at the hand of the absolute, most evil protagonist of this harrowing story. Bijomaru.
Bijomaru is the Angel of Death. Absolute evil. Clad all in white (the colour of death in Japan), holding a rose in his left hand and a tsuba-less katana ("I never defend") sheathed in white ivory in his right hand, Bijomaru is the epitome of angelic sadism. Angelic because he is an onnagata (not only is he made up like a woman, but his name means "beautiful woman"). Sadistic because... just watch chapter 9. Where the camera work is so sublime that it made me think of Carl Dreyer's "Vampyr."
Oh, sure, the final sequence where Azumi takes on a whole village of katana-for-hire goons is a bit of a let-down. Still, the camera work is magnificent, as is the final fight between Azumi and Bijomaru. But you have to be familiar with the myths of bushido to fully appreciate it.
Oh dear, how wrong I was!
The opening scene is straight out of a classical print by I forgot whom, showing Tokugawa no Ieyasu having a nightmare. He is in Hell, surrounded by the mountains of rotting corpses for which he is responsible. "Never again!" swears Gessei, who has survived through those bloody times of civil war. And so he sets about training a team of assassins. Their mission: kill anyone who plans to plunge Japan back into civil war again. I blanched at the cruelty of the first episode, when the ten teenager assassins are ordered to slaughter their best team mates. That is when I realized that Azumi was not your run-of-mill blood-and-gore manga-inspired movie. That it was profoundly disturbing and meaningful. Feeling confirmed in the next episode, where the five remaining youngsters are forbidden by their master to intervene in a fight where samurais are butchering defenseless villagers. From then on, I watched, entranced, and, contrary to many, I was rather inclined to fast-forward through the battle scenes, however skillfully done they were, for I saw them as mere padding, distractions from the main story.
Some of the baddies turn out to be rather nice chaps. Such as this warlord peacefully fishing when Azumi and her team mates turn up to assassinate him. Even as the Great Lord he is, he cheerfully ignores Azumi's disrespectful language (you have to know Japanese to understand how rude she is) and offers to teach her fishing. Death is his reward. Another one is Saru, who mercifully kills Hyuga to spare him a slow, painful death at the hand of the absolute, most evil protagonist of this harrowing story. Bijomaru.
Bijomaru is the Angel of Death. Absolute evil. Clad all in white (the colour of death in Japan), holding a rose in his left hand and a tsuba-less katana ("I never defend") sheathed in white ivory in his right hand, Bijomaru is the epitome of angelic sadism. Angelic because he is an onnagata (not only is he made up like a woman, but his name means "beautiful woman"). Sadistic because... just watch chapter 9. Where the camera work is so sublime that it made me think of Carl Dreyer's "Vampyr."
Oh, sure, the final sequence where Azumi takes on a whole village of katana-for-hire goons is a bit of a let-down. Still, the camera work is magnificent, as is the final fight between Azumi and Bijomaru. But you have to be familiar with the myths of bushido to fully appreciate it.