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Reviews
The Messenger: Tomurai wa yoru no hate de (2003)
Fantastic
Short, sweet, and to the point. Fans of Kitamura's "Sky High" and "Aragami" will like this short film. Kanae Uotani remains compelling, beautiful (so very beautiful), and ever so slightly disturbing in her role as the Messenger.
There's not a lot of story to this. It's about men visited by the mysterious Messenger who comes to deliver a message (of course). Fans of Kitamura will recognize more than simply Kanae Uotani (who was the uncredited "Rei" in "Sky High" as well as the nurse in "Longinus" and the mysterious woman in "Aragami").
For a short film, it's got a great mood to it. It really made me wish he'd flesh it out a bit into something more substantial.
Azumi (2003)
Fantastic!
I loved this movie! I loved the way they cut to scenes, the quasi-period outfits, and the cinematic badass-ness of the heroes and the villains. Plus, they have a monkey-ninja! Kitamura's direction and the film's choreographer does a good job covering up the fact that a 90-pound girl is swinging around a katana and killing people who are two to three times bigger than she is. The film makes good use of flashy and over-the-top (and sometimes anachronistic) tactics to make the battles fun to watch.
Aya Ueto does a pretty good job portraying an innocent girl whose only skill is to kill people and, while most of her supporting cast are somewhat dorky, they do okay with the roles they're given.
The best part is the villains, however. They're all over-the-top and a bit crazed. Some are truly vile but a few are actually somewhat sympathetic and they're all fun to watch.
This isn't Shakespeare by any stretch, but it's a fun viewing.
Azumi 2: Death or Love (2005)
Not as good as the first one
I loved the first "Azumi" movie. I've seen Ms. Ueto in a variety of her TV appearances and I've seen my fair share of samurai and ninja flicks. I have to say that this movie was much weaker than I'd expected.
Given the movie's cast and set up in "Azumi", they should have been able to do a much better job with this movie, but instead it was slow, plodding in parts, and sprinkled with very poor, unconvincing, and wooden acting.
When they bothered to reference the first movie, they did so in a manner that was pretty loose and weak. In "Azumi", the title character is the best of a group of superior killers. In "Azumi 2" she seems somehow diminished and less-impressive.
That's not to say it was a total loss. There were a few decent fight scenes and some over-the-top characters. Unfortunately, the movie suffers overall from the simple fact that Shusuke Kaneko and Yoshiaki Kawajiri are not Ryuhei Kitamura and Isao Kiriyama. The latter two truly captured the "manga" feel in their screenplay whereas the former never quite "got it."