BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL (2017) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

blade of the immortal (2017) movie

Genre              |   Action Fantasy

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |   140 minutes

Released         |   16 November 2017

cast

Takuya Kimura as Manji
Hana Sugisaki as Rin
Sota Fukushi as Anotsu

director

Takashi Miine

writer

Hiroaki Samura ... (manga)
 
Tetsuya Oishi ... (screenplay)

cinematographer

​Nobuyasu Kita

music

Kôji Endô

film editor

​Kenji Yamashita

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box office result

Worldwide               $150,532 ​

Australia                 $ unknown

North America        $150,532 ​

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movie minutiae

​Manji is named after the symbol on his kimono in the original manga: the manji symbol being the Japanese Swazstika symbolising the cycle of life before it was bastardised by the Nazi regime. In the film the symbol is changed so as not to offend. In the original manga, manji has the symbol emblazoned on the earth of his kimono.

​Koji Yakusho has an uncredited role towards the end of the film as a Samurai.

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BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL (2017) MOVIE IMAGES

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BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL (2017) STORY SYNOPSIS

​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.

BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL (2017) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 15 November 2017
Pop ​Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐½

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Takashi Miike’s 100th film is based on the popular, long-running Japanese Manga BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL that ran from 1993 until 2012. Capitalizing on title’s global awareness, due to the following it created during its near two decade run, Miike has delivered a movie that is extremely faithful to Hiroaki Samura’s original storyline, based around the exploits of Manji, a disgraced Samurai who has been made immortal until he can atone for his sins. The Manga version is compelling reading. Not only is it jam-packed with serrated-edge inspired action, the story also weaves in meaningful social commentary, the Japanese equivalent of Machiavellian politics and a touching relationship between “Big Brother” Manji and his young ward, Asano Rin. It’s no small challenge to take this 30 Volume epic and condense it into a movie that runs for a 141 minutes…

​The prolific Japanese Film & TV writer Tetsuya Oishi adapted BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL for the screen and his approach boils Samura’s work down to the absolute bare bones. The result is a story that sometimes feels more like a connected series of short films highlighting key moments in the relationship between Manji and Rin, punctuated by sequences of excessive violence choreographed around all manner of sword and knife-play. It’s very faithful to the Manga version, but leads to some narrative holes where the viewer has to “fill in the gaps” about unseen events in which a character has been involved and now explains their current disposition toward Manji and Rin.

The mercenary character of Shira, played by Hayato Ichihara, is a prime example of this at work in the story. Introduced in the film’s second half, Shira is a younger, more sinister version of Manji. Shira is defeated in battle by the cursed Immortal, has his sword hand sliced off, but remains alive. He disappears from the story for a period of time, only to return with a mop of grey hair and a grotesque weapon that has been grafted into the stump of his arm. Shira has a throwaway line that is designed to serve as exposition, but it really is anybody’s guess as to how he didn’t die from blood loss after his first fight with Manji and why he is now completely grey.

Viewers are left to form their own opinions as Miike doesn’t linger on any of these matters. Without being dismissive of exposition or detail, he is determined to push the film’s plot forward with the aim of getting to the “Battle Royale” finale where all the major protagonists and antagonists arrive at the one place and the one time to engage in a euphemistic orgy of death to determine who comes out the victor.

It’s sometimes said that actors relish playing the villain, rather than the hero, because evil is a more complex motivating force than good...

BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL is a great example of that idiom finding both substance and form with those who err on the dark side of righteousness. Anotsu Kagehisa is the movie’s primary antagonist, but Sota Fukushi’s performance is so still and subtle that he becomes more interesting as the movie progresses than either Takuya Kimura’s Manji or Hana Sugisaki’s Rin. By comparison, their portrayals seem melodramatic, even hysterical in Sugisaki’s case. Min Tanaka, as the scheming Kagimura Habaki, intermediary for the Shogunate, is similarly low-key but manages to make a big impression in a supporting role that takes on great significance during the films’s finale.

The interaction between Anotsu and Kagimura help to illuminate the social and political themes that help make BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL more than just a slice and dice revenge thriller. These two characters represent the “Old” (in Kagimura) and the “New” (in Anotsu) way of doing things in this snapshot of Japanese society. Kagimura’s Shogunate gamble on Anotsu’s self-entitled view of the world and feed his ego with overtures that convince him his new style of “Itto-ryu” fighting is to be embraced by the Shogun and he will be its principal teacher. Kagimura plays to the younger man’s vanity and their relationship is by far the most interesting of the film.

BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL is many things...

First and foremost, Miike makes sure that it never gets too full of its own importance. It’s vignette style all but guarantees it never has the chance to become too bogged down in its own mythology or be consumed by some of the darker issues, such as child abuse, the film presents on the surface. The film is summed up by its lead character when he tells his companion that there’s no time for tears, but, if you need a shoulder to cry on, you can borrow mine for a moment.

​The need to tell over two decades worth of adventures in just over two hours leaves little time for self-pity. The violence is graphic, but the action is, at times, hard to follow. There is no poetry is Miike’s images. They are blunt and functional. The camera does not dwell on swordplay. The point of the fighting is to provide a visual reference to Anotsu’s perspective and prove that it’s not how you play the game that counts, it’s who’s standing at the end that matters. Just as it starts with “Big Brother” and “Little Sister”, it ends. Recognition of family is important and central to Manji and Rin. In the loss of their own families, they find each other and, for their new family to succeed, it must first endure. Takashi Miike has delivered a wonderfully entertaining adaptation of the Manga and is a better-than-worthy effort for a man delivering his 100th work as a Director.

BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL MOVIE (2017) USEFUL LINKS

Mugen no jûnin (2017) - IMDb
​Blade of the Immortal (film) - Wikipedia
​Blade of the Immortal (Mugen no jûnin) (2017) - Rotten Tomatoes

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