Blade of the Immortal (2017)

Who payed the critics

Disturbing yet enthralling

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The narrative is difficult to grasp because of the bloody nature of the film. There are the traditional themes of loyalty and honor. Revenge being a way of expressing loyalty and honor. What's different here is the theme of redemption.The protagonist (Manji) killed his superior. Mercenaries kidnapped and killed Manji's sister in order to collect the reward on his head. Manji shows great fortitude in killing all the mercenaries despite receiving multiple deathly wounds.A sorceress revives him and gifted him with immortality. And, sends a girl (Rin) to him after her parents are killed. There's a master swordsman (Anotsu) with a megalomaniac desire to dominate the world of swordsmen. With his cadre of talented killers, Anotsu destroy many dojo including Rin's father.The cynical Manji decides to help Rin presumably because of the similarity between Rin and Manji's sister. Manji uses his immortality to defeat the master killers who are more skilled than Manji. Like the film Kill Bill, the foes get a chance to say something about themselves before being killed.In the middle of the film, the narrative gets confused as Manji meets a fellow immortal with the same aim of stopping Anotsu. But, Manji ends up killing his fellow immortal.Then, Manji is defeated by a woman assassin but is spared because of the assassin's sentimentality about Rin.Finally, the government acts against Anotsu. It gets really confused as Anotsu and Manji separately battle hordes of government soldiers.The film ends with a great deal of ambiguity. Was it worth spilling the rivers of blood?Overall, the movie is audacious. Crafting a variance of the samurai genre. However, the story telling is confused by the sub-plots and the ambiguous finale. The filmmakers may have intended to break from the traditional narrative. But, IMO the scale of the epic worked against the attempted interpretation of humanity. Something sparse like Rashomon might have worked better.Certainly lots of room here for debate!

Http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5084170/Just got back from the cinema after another Exeter Movie nights. It was an auspicious evening. Let me try to put into words my thoughts and feelings on Blade of the Immortal. A film already sitting in my top five films of all time. In fact it is dangerously close to it sitting at the top right now above Back to the Future, Withnail and I and 2001 Space Odyssey. Hell it might even be better than Bladerunner! Blade of the Immortal is why we moved to Japan. Plane and simple. It's why us gaikokujin, fans of anime and Japanese culture and the millions of Japanese in the world love Japan. This film enraptures Japan as an essence, a state of mind and an environment. Shot largely on what looks like location near Kyoto or somewhere in Ise the cinematograhy depicts Japan in it's natural overgrown bamboo forest state. The use of water in the mise en scene enraptures us in a world of perfection and wabi sabi or mooments of zen as we say in the west. From the summer cicada and crow caws within the folio to the obake undead warrior getting stabbed with a hundred different blades and still fighting on despite the carnage. It's probably the most violent film I've ever seen and the best Samurai movie to date. Yes it's as good as Kill Bill part one and Seven Samurai combined. I lost track at how many slashes, cuts, gratuitous decapitations and nyahhhh chops occurred but every single one of them was expertly choreographed and every single one of them counted and held meaning. The script is beautifully subtle and runs like some kind of epic poem absolutely succinct with Japanese psyche and holds a wicked sense of humour that had me laughing out loud all the way through especially at some of the darker moments. As well as being outrageously funny and dark it's beautifully endearing to the soul and to what it means to fight for our lives. Why do we insist on clinging to life when life is so painful? Why do we keep going? For honour, for revenge, for love or something more primal? The film also addresses what it means to be male and female within Japanese society excellently and the roles we must play. The true meaning of what it means to be a Samurai is explored intricately. A warrior standing on the fringes of society. Not fighting for government, not part of a gang of criminals or even expert fighting school of militia. A loan and noble warrior who fights for the right, without question or pause. Never for money. For soul. It's a beautiful film guys and Kimtaku Sama is the best thing I have seen in Japanese cinema since Mifune Sama. I know him as the kakoii gentlemen from Smap, billboards and advertising but after seeing this you will never see him as anything other than the spirit of the Samurai. Tom Cruise you were not even close. Hana Sugisani San who plays Rin is also exceptional with her acting and plays the adorable younger sister to Kimtaku's Manji. She is the catalyst for the story and the pivotal role of the piece allowing moral choices to come alive within the journey, adding weight and delicate poignancy to every action that occurs within the drama.Takashi Miike Sama, omedetougozaimashta. Subarashi deshta.GO SEE IT!5 + star rating nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaSynopsis Manji, a highly skilled samurai, becomes cursed with immortality after a legendary battle. Haunted by the brutal murder of his sister, Manji knows that only fighting evil will regain his soul. He promises to help a young girl named Rin avenge her parents, who were killed by a group of master swordsmen led by ruthless warrior Anotsu. The mission will change Manji in ways he could never imagine - the 100th film by master director Takashi Miike.

This is an extraordinary movie. It is extremely well done from all points of view. It contains violence and gore but if you can see beyond that you will find true art in this one (not too explicit, a good part is more suggestive than visual). If it is hard for you to understand or get pass the violence you need to consider that the violence is just a metaphor for human sacrifice or human determination of something that is above everything. This movie is about love, virtue and everything that comes from those two by mistake or by human nature. This movie might be not easy to understand but it is very close to possible for anybody who wants to understand it regardless of anything that stands against that. First: it is not predictable. Second: it has a very good cinematic and, regarding the fighting scenes, there is not a single move wrongly done. I assume that some parts are cut out only to make it shorter, but, besides that, there is not a single detail that does not contain something to bring value to the movie itself. Third: it contains a deep and strong philosophy that will evolve along with the course of action. I was not able to predict the end, may be you will be, but, even in that case, you will still like the art of it.

Mark the 100th movie directed by Takashi Miike one of Japan craziest director nowadays Blade of the Immortal based on the manga series with the same name is a entertaining modern samurai bloodbath but not as good as i though judging by Metalscore.Mad credit for the production values when the movie look very slick with beautiful cinematography and good sword fight choreography.The biggest fault in this movie fall in the same category as other live action movies is the characters.Sure the characters look very alike their manga counterpart but the movie decide to skip too much backstory mainly about Anotsu Kagehisa and Makie make their role pretty forgettable.If you never read or hear of the manga this will be one hell of a experience