REVIEW: ‘Azumi’ (2003)

With the release of AZUMI, exaggerated swordplay action in Japan has a new master and his name is Ryuhei Kitamura. To fully appreciate this director’s epic and stylized manga adaptation, one must know the genre’s history.

The jidai geki (period drama) or chambara film in Japan originated as simple action tales of good versus evil and was first elevated to epic works of art spearheaded by Akira Kurosawa in 1954 with the release of SEVEN SAMURAI. By the ’70s, a split took place that saw artful chambara like Kinji Fukasaku’s SHOGUN’S SAMURAI growing larger in budget and fewer in number, while more violent and modest actioners such as the LONE WOLF AND CUB films flourished. But by the 1990s, both styles of chambara virtually disappeared.

Now in the new millennium, writer/director Ryuhei Kitamura has emerged as the leading force in a new trend towards reviving at least one-half of the chambara genre, the populist actioner. Following the international success of VERSUS (2000), his zombie, yakuza and swordplay-infused first film, Kitamura takes the chambara actioner to new heights with loads of kinetic and bloody swordplay. In AZUMI, Kitamura’s signature taste for offbeat characters, irreverent humor, and gratuitous gore has been toned down for this mainstream release, but still remains in enough quality to season this film with plenty of kitsch flavor.

The story of AZUMI is adapted from a manga title of the same name by Yu Koyama. Its a little hard to swallow, but through the course of the film the diminutive title character, as played by pop starlet Aya Uet,o will cut her way through no less than 200 warriors made up of samurai, ninja, deranged mercenaries, and mobs of ROAD WARRIOR-inspired cutthroats. She reaches a gruesome climax with one of most memorable beheadings seen in film.

AZUMI is one of ten teenagers plucked as orphans from the aftermath of the Battle of Sekigahara and brought to a mountain retreat where they are trained as assassins by Gessai (Yoshio Harada), a martial arts master and war veteran, for the purpose of stopping any would-be warlord from sparking another war. Before they even leave, their numbers are reduced to five in a final test of fortitude and loyalty.

Descending from the mountain, the remaining warriors begin a mission to eliminate three warlords. All goes well until their second mission against Kiyomasa Keto (Naoto Takenaka) is foiled by his crafty general, Inoue Kanbei (Katsuki Kitamura), who has set a trap with Saru (Minoru Matsumoto) and his crew of ninja. Now the assassins find themselves being hunted as Kanbei recruits a trio of bloodthirsty mercenaries known as the Sajiki Brothers and Bijomaru Mogami (Joe Odagiri), an effeminate and psychopathic master swordsman with a taste for carnage and roses.

A finale trap is set in the port village of Gamo, best described by a certain Jedi master who once stated, “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” This leads to a massive melee with Azumi literally blasting her way in and charging into a throng of swordsmen as gunners fire from cover, mercenaries turn on their samurai masters, Saru preps a cannon with disastrous results, and Bijimaru transforms from delighted onlooker into a dancing frenzy of death as he cuts down everything in his path, friend or foe.

Much like Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL, Kitamura relishes in exaggerated violence, its many inspirations and a stylized presentation. The film borrows heavily from cult chambara classics and appropriately from its source material. This is then filtered through a worldview that draws from Kitamura’s love for Western cult cinema. If there is any notable progress made in the genre’s evolution, it’s found in Kitamura’s dynamic camera work and the sheer scale of destruction depicted. Dialogue is often shot from a distance by a sedentary camera, which is contrasted sharply by near constant swooping, panning and forced perspective angles during the action. This reaches a dizzying extreme in a 360-degree rotation around a duel between Bijimaru and Azumi, who stand on an elevated plank. Crane shots capture the impressively large Gamo set and the hundreds of fighters who fill its narrow streets.

Ample swordplay is adequately choreographed by Yuta Morokaji. Interestingly, his best-known work before this is choreography for LEGEND OF ZELDA: OCARINA OF TIME, a Nintendo 64 game released in 1998. Love it or hate it, a few wire-assisted tricks and CG effects are mixed in with the standard, Japanese-style swordplay.

While the action is perfectly enjoyable, none of the cast is particularly adept at their sword-handling, except for Yoshio Harada. It is fitting he should play the seasoned master as he’s a veteran of the genre with his starring role in RONINGAI being his last, best example. It’s a shame then to see his only action scene near the end and his character reduced to an emotionless drone.

Aya Ueto fits the image of Azumi as portrayed in the manga and she is certainly charming, but she doesn’t sell her action performance. Her sword-handling and movements are too slow to possibly convince me, even in this exaggerated world, that she could be able to stave off an army. Worse yet, there isn’t enough emphasis on what makes her special as a swordswoman. And unlike better-written chambara films, tactics – that were so important to Japan’s greatest swordsman Miyamoto Musashi – are ignored. These oversights make the film shallow as an actioner while the comic book-style characters make the story shallow.

Yet if you can put up with shallowness of the film, an element which resides in the bulk of the film industry output in most countries, you’re still in for a very entertaining action film that consistently spits out gleeful violence in bucket loads. Aside from the action, Kitamura’s comic touches are refreshing and keep the film grounded in fantasy where it belongs. Don’t let the tragic moments of fallen comrades, mild romancing of Hyuga (Kenji Hohashi), or the introspection of Azumi fool you, Kitamura clearly wants his audience to “have some fun” (see VERSUS audio commentary for quoted reference).

Kitamura’s source of fun derives from screwing around with oddball characters, something he let get out of control in VERSUS. An introductory scene with the Sajiki Brothers, who are engaging in a rather brutal game of arm-wrestling is a kick. Also, the return of Minoru Matsumoto who played the shrieking yakuza thug in VERSUS is welcome. He plays a monkey-like ninja who midway through the film starts to make these shrill animal noises during fights. His fight with Hideo Sakaki, another VERSUS alum playing Nagato, a rival ninja, is pretty slick. Fittingly, Minoru caps his role with a real bang.

AZUMI is pure, popcorn entertainment with no real depth, but with non-stop eye candy, gratuitous violence and a wry sense of humor. That’s what Kitamura is striving for in his self-professed desire to bring back the cult chambara film and that is what he succeeds in doing. I do wish the soundtrack, with its generic rock guitar riffs and stale orchestrations could match Kitamura’s energetic and quirky filmmaking style. But as a Japanese swordplay film, this has all the guts and glitter that is lacking in present Hong Kong action films. As one of the best action-heavy chambara films released in years, AZUMI is highly recommended.