Azumi 2: Death or Love

The second installment, and the final chapter of Azumi's saga picks up where the first one left off.

Monk Tenkai (Shigeru Kouyama) is still leading the ninja assassin troop to hunt down the remaining warlords of the Toyotomi clan. Azumi (Aya Ueto), and Nagara (Yuuma Ishigaki) who are the survivors from the first movie is part of Tenkai's assassins. There is a girl ninja in Tenkai's troop named Kozue (Chiaki Kurihara) who joins Azumi, and Nagara. Together they take off to assassinate Masayuki Sanada (Mikijiro Hira). On their way, they meet a group of bandits. One of them named Ginkaku (Shun Oguri) looks exactly like Azumi's first love Nachi. Kozue tells Nagara that Azumi secretly wants to defect with Ginkaku and live a peaceful life. In order to help Azumi realize her dream, Nagara suggests to go separate ways sending Azumi on a wild goose chase. Nagara, and Kozue then heads out to assassinate Masayuki Sanada. On their way, Kozue shows her true color as Masayuki's double agent. In the mean time, Masayuki decides to mount a preemptive strike on Tenkai's troops, and leaves his castle to assassinate them. Just when this seems to succeed, Azumi and the bandits shows up and defeats Masayuki's first wave of attack. Masayuki's main troop plans for another attack, this time with ninja Tsuchigumo (Taku Sakaguchi), and Kuunyo (Reiko Takashima). In the mean time, Kozue shows up at Tenkai's camp, and tells she got separated from Nagara. Then she moves to assassinate Tenkai, but is cut down by Azumi. On her way to kill Masayuki, Azumi encounters Tsuchigumo, and is nearly defeated by his steel wire attack. She survives, but now Kuunyo stands in her way. Drugged and nearly unconscious, Azumi can't fend for her life. Just when Kuunyo is about to give the finishing blow, Ginkaku shows up and stabs Kuunyo, but also gets fatally wounded by Kuunyo's lance. Azumi continues to Masayuki's camp, and Masayuki furious of Azumi killing Kuunyo, and his other henchmen, moves to a duel with Azumi.

Unlike the first Azumi which was mostly based on Kill Bill like action, this version is more poetic, and story driven. There's sadness to the whole story, and makes you wonder how Azumi's life will be like in the future. Ironically, director Shunsuke Kaneko who was a big fan of Kill Bill Vol 1 hired actress Chiaki Kuriyama who played Go Go in Kill Bill to play the role of Kozue on this film. Aya Ueto is more mature and pretty as ever. This is one lady who best of Hollywood beauties will have hard time competing with, and she can act to boot.

Bitter sweet saga that begs for a sequel, but probably wouldn't happen due to Aya Ueto's current age.

This can't be considered a separate film, it's just part 2. It starts exactly where it left off, without any explanations or flashbacks on how it starts. I can only imagine how confused someone can be watching this movie without seeing part 1. The actors are the same, the extras are the same (to the ridiculous point of having a friendly swordsman be interpreted by the same actor that played a killed foe in the first part of the movie AND being credited in the cast with the same character name).

However, the plot is more refined, it gets into the psychology of the people involved, the fights are more realistic, the directing is slightly better. In a few words it's exactly how Azumi 1 should have been. Of course, this doesn't make it a masterpiece. The same lame excuses for action and the same Japanese clichés are met all over the place. The only thing new to this part is the implementation of a rival clan of assassins, each specialized in a certain way, thus entering the more popular arena of super-strong ninja fighters. Also guns are used more, but with the same insane inefficiency as in the first part.

Oh, and for people reading this without seeing part 1 OR reading my super cool comment on the first part :) this is a movie about a cute diminutive young girl who is the best assassin ever, but still manages to have a conscience, dreams, friends, like any other normal human being. Sorta like Santa.

Yesterday I saw the fist Azumi and it impressed me so much that today I went to see the second one.

I still think that the movie by itself is good. It just doesn't lift to the height of the first one. It's seems that many had expectations about this one that doesn't came through, but if to look at it without comparing to the fist one, Azumi 2 is fine.

The plot is OK. More flaws than in the first one but it's not the problem of this film. It is not as appealing as the first one, but still interesting and never boring. I'm a little disappointed that Kanbei (my favorite character from the first movie) is underused.

The positive thing about this movie, is that it keeps the main cast from the first Azumi (specially when I saw them one after the other).

fights are great, and pretty much on the same level as in Azumi.

The ninja characters are very interesting. They have new tricks and new weapons, and add a lot to the movie.

But the movie has two major flaws: One is the character of Azumi and Nagara, which seems to be less determined in their mission and find other things more important ( like love or quiet living), one thing i could never expect after the ending of the first Azumi, and even less after their swearing to Tenkai in continuing the mission.

The second flaw doesn't concern the first Azumi, and it is in the dialog's of the characters. They say things that are obvious ,make them look stupid. They also look more dramatic (which is far above most of Chinese Kong Fu movies conversations but still reminds them).

Overall i think Azumi2 is a likable samurai movie and better than most in this category.

The girls is cute, but it just lacks really good action scenes and realistic story. You will be see a lot of conversation in this movie. Action senses is pretty short and the ending just sucks. The boss is really weak at the ending. I thought the first movie was much better, more bloody and better story line. The first movie contain challenges that Azumi and her friends got to go to through. My favorite enemy in the first movie was the crazy guy that in the white kimono. He just plain crazy and kill everything in his way. This second movie seem to focus more one story or try to. Sure, there is one good fight seen in the bamboo forest with Azumi versus bear ninja guy(use claws and wire as weapon). The second attempt of this movie made probably to sell the cute actresses. Don't get me wrong, I'll go and watch the cute ninja girls in action, but for action and story line. It just plain triable. I don't mind of having female as a warrior. Just watch it yourself and decide if it good or bad.

Azumi left off on a cliffhanger, but at the same time we could have gone without seeing a sequel. This sequel is rather bad. The first one had great manga style action, this one barely has any of the cool action in the first one. Also they decide to recast all the dead actors from the first movie, and have them play a different role. It just doesn't work and creates a huge mess of a film.

The story suddenly becomes a love story, instead of an assassin story like the first one. In the first one, Azumi and her team had one simple goal, kill the men who will eventually start wars in Japan. This movie does have a cool fight scene at the end, but it is short and the way they end this movie is really underwhelming.

I guess fans should watch the sequel just to see what happens to Azumi, but after watching this movie, they should only stick with the first one.