Review: Azumi

Summary
Genre: Action, Historical
Release Date: May 10, 2003 (Japan)
Starring:

• Ueto Aya as Azumi
• Oguri Shun as Nachi
• Hiroki Narimiya as Ukiha
• Yuma Ishigaki as Nagara

After a major battle, Japan is closer to being united thanks to the Tokugawa clan. However, three warlords seek to overthrow the Tokugawa clan. The Tokugawa clan orders a master samurai named Gessai to raise and train ten assassins. After years of training, the assassins are put through one final test that leaves only five of them alive. They are then given their mission which is to kill the three warlords.

Review
Azumi is probably one of the most popular action films in Japan. It has a very high production quality and an all-star cast. There’s the talented and popular singer/actor Ueto Aya and there’s the ever so popular Oguri Shun who you might recognize from Hana Yori Dango and Hana Kimi. Like I said before, production quality of Azumi is very high. There are very nice environments, Edo-period customers, music, and gory effects. Unfortunately, the all-star cast and the production quality were the only good points of Azumi.

Ultimately, Azumi is just a pure action movie with the assassins battling it out with any enemies the warlords can throw at them. However, I thought the fighting choreography was quite boring to watch compared to what I’ve seen in Chinese and Hong Kong movies. In Azumi, every battle between characters is just a simple block or evade then a slash, nothing too special. One of reasons for this was because most of the cast aren’t the people you see in action movies often.


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Pros

• High production quality, with nice scenery, costumes, music etc.
• All-star cast
• Ueto Aya!!! (>//<)

Cons

• Pure action film with a weak story
• Fighting choreography is boring
• Cast is inexperienced in terms of action movies
• Death count is really high
• Monkey ninja guy makes a very cheesy dog sound (-_-‘)

Recommendation
If you like action movies, you will get some entertainment out of Azumi. If you don’t, I suggest you stay away from this movie.

Rating: 7/10

Stay Tuned! I plan to review Azumi 2: Death or Love

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