Score

7/10

Review

Whenever I see a movie come out that is a live action adaption of either a cartoon/anime or of a manga/comic it ends up being either a hit or a miss with no middle ground. Blade of the Immortal is one of those that lands in the middle, but only because of a few continuity issues.

Story

The movie starts off in the past. You see Manji on the run and doing his best to care for his sister (Machi) who appears to be somewhat autistic. After she leaves his sight he finds her in the arms of a band of 100 bounty hunters who want to collect the bounty on Manji's head. After killing Machi, Manji lashes out and slaughters all of the bounty hunters but also falls himself. Barely clinging to life, an old woman (Yaobikuni) cuts open his chest and gives him the bloodworms which heals his body and prevents him from dying easily.

Fast forward 50 years later, during the evening meal at the Asano residence/dojo, Anotsu Kagehisa and the rest of his band from the Itto-ryu school give Kurose (leader of the Mutenichi-ryu dojo) the choice of either joining their school or to die. Reluctant, Kurose strikes at Anotsu but is swiftly cut down and Anotsu gave his men the freedom to do what they want with Kurose's wife but to not touch the daughter (Rin). After witnessing the murder of her father and rape of her mother, Rin set out to train in the hopes of killing Anotsu. She runs into Yaobikuni and she informs Rin of a person who is immortal and that she should hire him as her bodyguard. Rin finds Manji and Rin convinces Manji to help her to kill Anotsu and everyone from the Itto-ryu.

What was good

Being that the movie is based off the Manga it is easy to see where in the story they deviated from the original source. But, in this case, very little was changed. The biggest change that fans of the series will know right away is that Manji's gi does not have iconic swastika on the back. Understandable, giving that most viewers will not know of the original meaning of the swastika before it was appropriated by the Nazi party. Given that the story of Blade of the Immortal takes place in the 1400's Japan, the image of the swastika was to represent "life" which was the pun on Manji since he can't die.

Other than that, not much else was changed from the original story. (I need to reread the later volumes to confirm the ending but I vaguely remember that was pretty close).

The soundtrack was great and helped immerse you in the time period.

The acting and screenplay was good, too. Though, Rin's screaming got annoying at times.

What was bad

This is where the score became a 7 instead of a 9. There were a few scene cuts that really stood out as being very amateurish. Without spoiling anything, one example, someone had jumped onto the roof of a shack to cut down 3 people who had rifles. The camera cut to looking up at the roof, that person, between cuts, had lost the weapon, turned around, got shot, and fell off the roof. Cut's like that completely ruined the continuity of the story. And this type of sharp cuts happened 2 or 3 times (I don't remember exactly how many times but enough to remember them happening).

It's not like this is the first movie from a fresh out of college film student where sharp cuts like this can be excused. This was the 100th film by Takashi Miike. One would expect a certain level of quality from the editing.

Final Thoughts

Blade of the Immortal was a blast to watch, though long. Clocking in at 2 hours and 20 minutes, you will need a large bucket of popcorn to get through it. But, if you are a fan of the manga series, this would go great with the collection. If you are a fan of Japanese time period movies, at the very least this is a must watch. If you don't like foreign films, keep walking.