IF YOU GO into a movie expecting it to become one of your all-time favourites, you should expect instead to be disapointed. Such is the case with myself and Azumi,
Azumi is a movie I was very excited about seeing - but then I am obsessed with swordfighting as well as superheroes. Although based on Japanese comics not widely avaliable in the west, one glimpse of the Azumi trailer reveals all manner of colourful characters engaging in blade-swinging mayhem. Plus it is based on a comicbook, and thus has the hightened sense of reality and design which I love.
It would be easy to call this the film Kill Bill (2003) wanted to be. That's not exactly accurate though. Whilst Azumi is closer to the crazy, old-style bloody martial arts mayhem that Tarrantino tried to emulate, it's very different in other ways. It's the story of a band of teenage assassins who must kill a series of warlords who threaten the peace of the country around 1600. The warlords send their own assassins after the assassins, and by the climax, nearly every single character is dead. This is the typical samurai story, warriors who are forced to go on fighting even though they don't want to. Azumi tells it in the most straight-forward, basic way possible.
The only difference is, these are teenagers. If you can imagine the BBC producing a six episode kung fu TV series in the 1970's, with a Japanese cast and crew, and then editing it into a movie, you can imagine Azumi. It's episodic. It's very cheap looking, shot mainly on location in woods and fields. The costumes are very over-the-top (to be expected as Azumi is based on a comic strip), yet in most cases very badly constructed. A lot of the costumes look amateur. The acting, however, is fine, albeit a tad hysterical in many places. In fact, the only emotions on display here are hysterical and painfully stoic. But it works, moving from one extreme to the other and back.
But this is an action movie first and foremost. There is a lot of action, and it's all swordplay. Sadly not sword fighting, but sword play. The difference? Sword fighting is when swords clash and the opponents have a proper battle. Azumi has endless scenes of the heroes chopping down wave after wave of bad guys, without having to even block or parry once. Despite some imaginative shots, this is unavoidably repetitive. And there is virtually no threat to our heroine whatsoever until the climax, and even that is disappointing. After you've seen Azumi slice up an entire village full of thugs (according to the DVD, 200 men!), one more bad guy, no matter how good, is never going to be pose much of a threat. The lack of excitement is not helped by dull rock music that could have been taken from a 1996 Sega Saturn game.
Our heroine, Azumi, is played by the jaw-droppingly cute 18-year old pop star Aya Ueto. As unlikely as it seems, she makes a pretty convincing sword-swinging killer, and has the 'sad warrior' samurai movie expression down perfectly. When she's cloaked in her jet black cape, she makes quite a fetching heroine. The rest of the cast is barely worth mentioning. All are passable, but none stand out in any way. There are only two faces on display here; brooding (after you've killed) and extreme pain (as you're being killed).
Azumi is entertaining in a low-key way, but never amounts to anything. The title character drifts through the movie with the bare minimum of development. Although she denies fate for a time and gives up the warrior life, she can't escape it for ever, and just like Clark Kent and Peter Parker in their movies, she's needed to be a hero. She ditches her combat garb and dresses in a pink komono, but the appeal of the sword is too strong. Finally she gives in and grasps it, pulling a katana from the scabard of a thug who is about to rape her. "I have no choice," she mutters, "I am forced to kill." Once Azumi accepts her destiny, Ueto thankfully adds some steel and melancholy wisdom to the character.
None of the battles have any build up, and the endless hack-and-slash gets dull after a while. There are some basic attempts to add personalities to the villains, but there is little time for that between the blood-letting. It's proberbaly most palatable in thirty second bursts; watch one of the trailers for the movie and you'll see everything it has to offer.
Another problem is, despite the heavy war and death vibes, this movie is camp-all-day. The sheer volume of men in ludicrous costumes with bizarre haircuts, many of who make silly noises, ruins any chance the film has of being taken at anything beyond face value. The ultimate villain (and there are a number) is as feminine as can be, in a white dress, very long hair and pink eye-shadow. He throws roses to his intended victims and shrieks with girlish excitement as he slashes them up. He has a vague air of menace, but mostly resembles Cesar Romero's Joker as a 16th century Japanese asassain. Only not as good. And no maustache.
There are so many very similar, and better, films out there. Bichunmoo (2000) is what Azumi would be like with real story, real emotion, real characters and stunning visuals. Princess Blade (2001) is almost Azumi set in the future, as it also stars a Japanese pop princess as a sword-wielding assassin. But Princess Blade has intense, vicious action - with clashing swords and bad guys who don't get slashed down immediately. If you want to look outside movies based on comicbooks, Seven Samurai (1954) is considered one of the best movies of all time, and Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai (2003) is definetly worthwile viewing.
Azumi isn't great, but it had the potential to be more than a basic, cheap, hack-and-slash bloodbath. As with so many movies like this, it's greatest flaw is the contradiction at it's heart; violence ruins lives, it tells us, until the next fight scene, in which violence is cool.
It contains some undeniably imaginative elements, but remains a missed opportunity. It does however break the record for most stupid haircuts in one movie.
Azumi trailer...
[YT]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rE6Gy73Mo4o[/YT]
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