Blade of the Immortal

TM’s 100th film is a cinematic Great among Manga classics! Fine tuned and well choreographed, as well great cinematography, captures unique journey of Rin as she’s attempting to avenger her father’s death at the hands of Anotsu and the Itty ryu clan. Plot twist a many to keep audiences on the edge of their seat in the samurai epic.

action-packed film, perfect for those who want to see a gore-packed samurai film.

Good clean fun. A bit too long for a movie of this kind though.

If you enjoy samurai fighting this is the film for you. In fact, this is nearly 100% about fighting. The fantasy angle of being immortal is interesting.

I made it like a half an hour. I can't believe the reviews this got. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. The costumes, the acting, the dialogue, the special effects, it's all just so awful. I like campy samurai movies but ugh, this is just terrible. There are so many better samurai movies out there. If you want a more recent samurai epic, check out 13 assassins, also directed by Takashi Miike. It's a much better use of your time.

Takashi Miike's mind blowing blood soaked vision of the manga of the same name "Blade of the Immortal" is over the top and full of blood gushing excitement. But perhaps the one and only thing to hold the film back is the film is a tad to long and slightly repetitive but with that it's still an entertaining two hours.

Wow, I really like the characterization of the characters. Hana is so good in the role of Rin.

Ah yes, Takashi Miike. If you're familiar with the iconic and divisive director's work, then you know you can expect a ton of hyper violent action where limbs are being severed left and right, and the fake blood supplier to the film set is stressed out with all the overtime. As far as the story goes, it's not exactly complicated and characters aren't explored in any depth which means you're not going to be particularly affected when they die a violent death. Being based on an anime, it's also quite cheesy, but does good job of capturing the feel whilst teetering on the edge of "too much", yet not quite tipping over. In short, it's pure, shallow, crazy samurai action which is pretty fun to a certain degree, but also repetitive. It's not going to make it onto anyone's top ten list, but you won't be bored.

Takashi Miike is one of my most favorite Japanese film Directors. Definitely this is not his best work, yet, it's really good. This film is a little lengthy, slow paced drama with impressive sword fight sequences. Character development was also amazing, though I have no idea about the manga it was based on. A worth watching stylish action film.

So I sort of got bamboozled by this film. I was flicking around on tv and this film popped up... it looked like a old 60s Samurai film, a little showy, but nothing beyond say Sword of Doom, which incidently is one of my favourite films. I thought... hey this is cool, a old school black and white samurai film I haven't seen. So I stopped the video, went to the channels app and watched from the start.... After a while there was a modern special effect... ??? and then it turns out the black and white part is just a prelude to the film, which then colourises and starts the main story. The film is really strange. The premise is that a Samurai is cursed by this witch/demon/sorceress type thing to live forever with the aid of these "bloodworms from the sacred lama". The film focuses on a small child (like 12 or something, it is hard for me to tell the age of Japanese women) who vows revenge after her family is murdered. The witch points her to the Immortal and lots of sword fighting ensues. All is all it is a serviceable movie, if a little silly with all the fantasy elements. Still I think the opening scene vs the rest of the movie really highlights something that bothers me about modern cinema. Like Marvel Movies or crap action films like Fast and the Furious or GI Joe. The first part of the movie is a typical 1 vs army thing you see in martial arts films. It is gory, and I enjoyed it and the hero takes damage and this produces risk. I know he will win, but it looks like he is loosing or in danger of loosing. The "Die Hard" effect I have heard it called before. Then in the rest of the movie he is immortal. So gone is all the normal aspects of marital arts movies. Characters just hack at each other like in Universal Solider and it is kinda boring. I mean the "marital art" stuff is even lost as why even both blocking when you can just use your body like a pin cushion? Also, it is somehow unfun to root for someone with such a unfair advantage. Like in John Wick... he walks around in a 100% bullet proof suit that can be sprayed with machine gun fire with zero issues, so all his "awesome" gun play is sorta lame.. as no one had a chance. Same in this film. He dose not need to be the best swords man, and in fact he is not... all he has to do is like get their sword stuck in his femur and do a killing blow. I suspect this movie is also an Anime. After watching a bunch of Rourunin Kenshin movies I have started to be on the look out in Japanese films for characters with crazy hair cuts or outfits that really stand out form the extras and villages and stuff. All in all the film was ok.. I mean I wouldn't call it a great film, but it was watchable even though I lost a lot of interest about 1/2 through. It is a little long. It is bloody and has that trade mark Japanese over dramatic acting thing going on I find quite charming. Verdict : I was totally baited. This was not the film I thought it was going to be based on the start. It is almost like 2 different styles.