Cast: Ueto Aya, Oguri Shun, Ishigaki Yuma, Okamoto Aya, Odagiri Jo, Narimiya Hiroki, Kohashi Kenji, Kaneko Takatoshi, Eita, Harada Yoshio, Ryo, Takenaka Naoto, Kitamura Kazuki, Ibu Masato
Looking at the cast list, it's a mix of notable names within the industry in a single movie but some of them get killed within 20 minutes. What a waste of talent!
Let me provide a summary of the plot. Harada Yoshio plays a samurai from the Tokunaga family who picks up orphans in order to groom a team of assassins who will eliminate the threats to the Tokunaga control. Azumi (Ueto Aya) is one of them who is part of the team with her 9 other friends. They have been taught to accomplish a great mission and train everyday to be top class assassins. One day, Ji (grandpa i.e. Harada) tells them that they would begin their mission and the final test for them before they leave the mountains would be to kill their partners thus leaving 5 survivors in the team. After much deliberation, Azumi kills her best friend, Nachi who tells her to work hard for their sakes.
The team got down to work so as to eliminate the three threats to the Tokunaga family. They finished the first task easily but they flopped in the second task since the guy they killed was an imposter. In addition, their whereabouts had been exposed and the enemies get hot on their heels. One of their teammates, Amagi was hit by a poisonous dagger and Ji tells them to leave Amagi behind since he's going to die soon. Azumi refused to do so and doubted the meaning of killing these so-called enemies so the team left without her.
Unknown to them, their enemies released a killing demon played by Odagiri Jo who had been held in captive so as to deal with Azumi and her friends. One by one, Azumi's friends got killed and Ji is captured so as to lure Azumi to fall into their ambush. In the end, Azumi killed the enemies and proceeded to complete the remaining task of her mission together with her sole surviving friend, Nagara...
Well, I'm not a fan of samurai or period dramas all along but the way this movie is presented has been very different. In fact, looking at the image design of the characters and the cinematography, it feels like a modern way of presenting a constantly repeated genre. Especially for Ueto fans, it must be a treat looking at her sexy design and cool swordsplay which is very different from her usual cutie-pie roles in dramas.
Like I said earlier, the cast is made up of so many notable actors that even people like Ryo appear for one single scene and get killed, Oguri Shun appears for 20 minutes and gets killed by Ueto Aya etc. In the end, everyone gets killed and only Ueto Aya, Ishigaki Yuma and the enemy played by Kitamura Kazuki survive.
The gore index of this movie is quite high as you will constantly see blood splashed all over the screen and by the first hour, I was feeling tired at seeing all those bloodshed scenes.
It was only until Odagiri Jo appeared that things started to get better. He was wearing white, had white hair, a pale face yet red makeup around his eyes as if to emphasize the demonic streak in his character. He was constantly holding a rose and relished the excitement of watching people get killed. His last fight scene with Ueto was done in a glamorous manner where these two people fly all over the place and the screen keeps turning in 360 degree directions to show their fight from different angles. Too bad, he still got killed by her.... Oh well, baddies always die so there's no way Odagiri's role would have even survived in the first place.
On the whole, this is a pretty good movie for the visual effects (i mean the galore of actors and fighting scenes you can see, not the gore). Story-wise, I feel that it was not developed properly even though the movie was about 2.5 hours long. More could have been done to describe Azumi's internal conflict about killing people and whether they deserved to die in her opinion. Hopefully, the sequel will provide more depth to the storyline.
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