CompleteMartialArts.com - Azumi
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List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $13.49
Your Save: $ 11.46 ( 46% )
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Manufacturer: AsiaVision
Starring: Aya Ueto, Shun Oguri, Hiroki Narimiya, Kenji Kohashi, Takatoshi Kaneko
Directed By: Ryuhei Kitamura
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0638652114204
Format: Closed-captioned
Label: AsiaVision
Manufacturer: AsiaVision
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: AsiaVision
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2006-11-21
Running Time: 128
Studio: AsiaVision
Theatrical Release Date: 2003
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Editorial Reviews:
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Studio: Urban Vision Release Date: 11/28/2006
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Horrible!!!!!!
Comment: i gave it two stars cuz azumi herself is so damn hot i watched the whole thing because of her. no other reason really. so that in itself deserves two stars. the swordplay is really bad, which is bad for me cuz i was hoping to see excellent swordplay. total opposite. my little sisters enjoyed this movie alot though....
Customer Rating:
Summary: An Underrated Movie Well Worth Checking Out
Comment: This is one of the few Samurai/Ninja action movies that has both an interesting storyline and great action battle scenes. The story itself is in the era when Japan was in civil war between which clan would rule Japan, thus you have one former Samurai general who serves one of the faction clans and is ordered to create a group of assassins who would be raised from childhood to destroy the rival faction clan and bring peace to all of Japan. The General raises ten children all boys except one a girl by the name of Azumi in isolation teaching them the way of the ninja and training them in swordsmanship and after reaching their adulthood they are giving their orders to return to civilization in begin their primary orders. But first to test his students resolve he tells them to team up with their best friend in pairs of two and than if they are truly ready to begin their quest they must first kill their teammate, the students sadly and with great anguish comply with this order until there are only five students left which after burying their comrades begin their trek onward. After Azumi carries out her first assassination with one of the lords she begins to question their orders as she sees that the rival lords aren't truly villains or warmongers as she and the other children were lead to believe. The movie is great especially when you see the heart-aching scene when the friends carry out their teachers orders to kill each other, while of course most people would say they would never do that you have to realize that these were children raised almost all their lives to believe in their teachers edicts and steel rules about right and wrong good and evil and so ultimately felt they had to carry out this horrendous order as well. I also like how they put a touch of humanism in the scene with Azumi's first assassination with the rival feudal lord it showed that he was just a normal human who wasn't an ogre or truly evil man but just a person on the opposite side of Azumi's beliefs. The picture for this dvd is wide-screen and the picture is clear and sharp so no problems with video quality, and of course you get the optional dubbed or subbed audio but with most dubbed the quality is at most 50/50 so with most people I say watch it dubbed for the best entertainment viewing. The action and blood are plentiful here so this of course is not meant for children but if you like sword swinging battles and your pound of violence this movie is a great choice for you.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A disgrace to the samurai film tradition
Comment: There have been some very good samurai films lately: Hidden Blade, Twilight Samurai, When the Last Blade is Drawn. This is not one of them.The 'acting', especially from Azumi herself, is risible. The plot ludicrous. The fight scenes are amateurish. The CGI is inept. Anyone who thinks that this is a good samurai film should be compelled to sit down and watch some of the masterpieces of the genre: Sword of Doom, Tenchu, Sanjuro, Goyokin, Hara-Kiri. And then you can judge this one. It's so bad, it's embarrassing. Alain Silver, in his wonderful book Samurai Film, calls Azuma 'vacuous'. And so must anyone be who finds this rubbish worth watching.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Heart of steel
Comment: Most action movies are all about the testosterone, and most action women are basically sexy parodies of their male counterparts.
Not so in "Azumi." This blood-spattered Japanese action film is all about the girl who becomes the deadliest assassin. The movie is short on plot and high on death, blood and dismemberment, but admittedly it does an outstanding job with its strong points -- and particularly with the moral complexities of the heroine's whole purpose in life.
After losing his son in a bloody war, a samurai (Yoshio Harada) brought together ten children -- nine boys, and the girl Azumi (Aya Ueto) -- and trained them to become the ultimate assassins. When their training is over, he orders them to each slay their teammate. With their best friends dead and their home in ashes, the young warriors are taken out into the unfamiliar world, and are confused by their master's contradictory commands.
He is intent on having them fulfill their "mission": to take out the three rebellious warlords Asano Nagamasa, Masayuki Sanada and Kiyomasa Kato who may end up plunging Japan into another horrible war. But his followers' faith in him has been badly shaken, and Azumi is further confused when one of these supposedly evil men treats her with paternal kindness even as she kills him. As she and her friends continue their bloody quest, she must grapple with the losses around her -- and with a very effeminate mercenary coming after them.
You have to admit, there aren't a lot of movies that feature the heroine killing her love interest only a few scenes into the movie, and then going on a blood-caked quest to eliminate even more people. Especially if you're meant to like her. So unsurprisingly "Azumi" nudges at the morality of what the characters do, and the desperate need to not face the question: Is this mission really a good thing?
But these moral questions don't really drive "Azumi." The plot is as straight and thin as Azumi's sword, and while a few clever twists are thrown in (Kato's body double) it's more or less a steady stream of exceptionally nimble fight scenes and graphic gore. Throats are cut, chests are slashed, heads are impaled, and blood sprays in every direction, while Azumi and her pals go spinning and jumping through every fight scene with dying bodies flying through the air. Yet even the fight scenes have a hint of artistry and sadness -- just look at the young warriors fighting each other.
Interestingly, this thinnish plot is very loosely based on actual history -- the warlords that Azumi's band kills were real people -- and it does a solid job with the costumes and weaponry. And the scenery is full of utterly stunning shady forests and mountain-filled skies, serving as a stark contrast to the bloody horrors of the human world.
Ueta does what she's supposed to do in "Azumi" -- look pretty and troubled while spinning around and hacking down dozens of ninja and samurai with her sword. She's not a great actress -- some of the scenes are downright wooden -- but she does give Azumi a sense of naive pathos that you wouldn't expect an assassin to have. She's particularly good when Azumi is forced to either kill the man she loves or be killed by him, and when she sees a little girl watching her mother die.
The other actors do better jobs -- Harada gives a suitably stiff, painful performance as a man whose obsession with crafting the ultimate assassins leads him to use these innocent young people for his own purpose. And Azumi's teammates all have their own individual personalities -- for instance, one of them refuses to consider that their enemies may not be evil people, while another keeps asking the master "why?" and never getting an answer.
"Azumi" is full of savage grace and brilliantly choreographed fight scenes, and admittedly not a lot else. But as a solid action flick, it's a bright little cult flick splattered in more blood than you'll find in virtually any other movie.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Female Samurai Assassins are not to be mess with!,
Comment: Azumi is a nice action flick with a B-movie feel to it. Yeah, it gets boring in some parts, but it delivers kick a.. action, a beautiful lead and samurai swordfights, which are always welcomed and fun was amused by the story. Nothing too simple, nothing too terribly difficult. Pretty straight forward plot. (Read the synopsis on the main page). It was enough to keep me entertained and, in these kind of movies, if the plot doesn't hold up, the action will keep you in you're seats.
This movie was full of hordes of baddies, charging at Azumi and her counterparts, while she kills as many as one can count. It is said that "Hard Boiled" carries the award for most on-screen deaths. Nope. That award goes to this title. Many people die, so if you're planning to show this to your significant other, think for a minute. It is a very graphic movie. Very much like the classic samurai movies you remember. Blood spray, dismemberments, and plenty of slices. The battles were choreographed quite well considering the size of them. But, was the lead actress up for them?....O yeah!
The actress who plays Azumi, Aya Ueto, who is also very beautiful, seemed kinda out of place. I do not, however, know anything about her past history. I can guess that she is new to this genre... The costume on her seemed out of place but very interesting. Others do quite well, and fit with the tone of the movie, especially Bijomaru (the white robed one). He made this movie even more for me.
Azumi, based, apparently, on a manga is just what you expect from an adaptation. Expect cooky characters, like the dog impersonator, and Bijomaru. Also expect that over-the-top violence. A very manga-esque movie. Kitamura, so far from the two movies I've seen (Versus), he doesn't fail to entertain. He does his job and I'm very grateful see it by all means. Thanks Sir Night for putting this out there!
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