Japan-O-Rama: Azumi (2003)

Have you ever read a long dull film review where the reviewer thought they were more important than the movie they are writing about. To make matters worse they drone on making so many “interesting” points you get bogged down and by the you get to the end you have no idea if the movie any good or not. So why not condense reviews to a simple concise paragraph? Over the past four years Paul at Paragraph Film Reviews has perfected the art. Now, Inspired by his pending trip to Japan, he has decided to immerse himself in Japanese culture, namely Japanese movies. He has asked other bloggers to join in here is my first attempt:

Set in seventieth century Feudal Japan and based on the Japanese manga series of the same name created by Yu Koyama, Azumi is the story of an orphaned girl who is raised along with nine other children by a master Samurai. After years of training they have to face one final test before going on their first mission. The test is nothing short of brutal. Their mission is to kill three warlords preventing a civil war that will be devastating for the country. The main reason the film works is the lead character Azumi (played by the impossibly cute Aya Ueto), as proved by Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill and Ang Lee in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, you can’t go far wrong when you give a beautiful woman a sword and drop her into the middle of the male dominated action genre. Directed Ryûhei Kitamura who made his name in the totally bonkers (but brilliant) Versus, this possibly his most accessible movie.

You can see all the Japan-O-Rama posts HERE.

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