MOVIE MONDAYS: BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL

Synopsis: When her father is murdered and her mother taken for sport by the mysterious group calling themselves the Itto-Ryu, Rin Asano (Hana Sugisaki) seeks revenge. Her tool for this vengeance will be Manji (Takuya Kimura), a heavily scarred samurai who was blessed/cursed with bloodworms, parasitic creatures that heal his wounds (kind of) and refuse to allow him to die. Because Rin reminds him of a major sin from his past, Manji grudgingly agrees to help her. However, he must face some of the strangest and most dangerous fighters in all of Edo, as he seeks to slay the Itto-Ryu’s oddly mesmerizing leader Anotsu (Sota Fukushi). Not only Rin seeks the Itto-Ryu blood, however. Mercenaries and an army of samurai are on the trail as well. In this tumultuous time, allegiances will be made and broken without second thoughts and lives will be spent like coins. For his one hundredth film, Takashi Miike directed this live action adaptation of the long time running manga BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL and the result is a bloody, violent, hilarious, and sometimes touching picture pitting an orphan and her merciless ronin bodyguard against even more merciless opponents.

DANIEL’S TAKE

After seeing AUDITION (1999) on the big screen and watching 13 ASSASSINS (2010), I had been struck with a hankering to see more of Miike’s flicks. I was a huge admirer of his works in the ’00s, and then sort of moved on for a while. Of course the man has produced fifty more movies while I was away (and we own a regionless DVD player), so there are plenty to choose from. I am sticking with those available in our region, however. At least for now.

At Trista’s suggestion, we kicked off the Miike watch with BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL (2017), and I discovered the film is an impressive entry from the unbelievably energetic and often impressive filmmaker. While the shocking depravity of some of Miike’s earlier yakuza flicks are not present here – nobody gets drowned in a pool of excrement, for example, as they do in the delirious DOA (1999) – the film has an assurance in its camera work, its storytelling, and its visuals.

BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL is a period piece but it is a fantasy one as well. As with John MIlius’s CONAN: THE BARBARIAN (1982), this is a fantasy world that feels lived in. There is grit under its fingernails, the people who live there are not shiny and clean, and the overall sense of morality is often shades of gray instead of black and white. It is a place where a young woman can demand vengeance and be given the chance to chop off her opponents head herself – whether she does or not is a philosophical and spiritual battle all her own, and one that the film builds toward with a deft hand. It is a film where some of the most powerful artistry features lone figures amidst scenes of gorgeous carnage, slashed bodies lying in pieces around them.

Heads up: if the previous paragraph makes you wrinkle your nose in disgust, then BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL is probably not a film that’s going to convert you to Miike’s more bloody yet gleeful visions. However, if the idea of an episodic battle royal featuring fabulous swordplay, operatic emotion, and plenty of splashed crimson make you curious, then you will find plenty to enjoy in this flick. The third samurai picture Miike has made in the last ten years, the film has themes and motifs that carry through from the director’s glorious 13 ASSASSINS. Again, we have a small group facing overwhelming odds. Again, we have instructors teaching their students and learning from those students in turn. Again, we find story elements amidst fight scenes.

The cast of characters this time around are a bit looser in terms of historical realism than a movie like 13 ASSASSINS, and the violence is touched with sometimes cartoonish wire work and touches. This is a movie with a lot of limb severing action, hands are lopped off pretty often – including Manji’s own, which allows for some goofy but cool looking CGI to allow at least his lost hands to be reattached by irritated tentacles/bloodworms.

Unlike a movie like PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (2003), wherein people who could not die fought ultimately meaningless yet lengthy sword battles, Manji feels pain and experiences a dulling of his powers when a special poison comes into play. After squaring off with another immortal, he finds himself more vulnerable to his enemies, and that adds a degree of nobility to Manji’s character, who in the end is fighting for a stranger who happens to look like someone he failed to keep alive in the distant past.

As one might expect, there are threads of redemption running through BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL. On the surface it is a revenge piece, but the story and its characters are not really looking for vengeance. They think they are. There are other threads at work.

Stripping out the T from the title would retitle this picture BLADE OF THE IMMORAL, and that’s more than a punning aside it peers into the heart of the picture itself. What we have here is a man who is beyond human concern, a self-loathing fellow who rediscovers his own humanity and shows the audience what it means to be human in the process. As well as what a badass looks like, I suppose; Manji certainly is that. However, we also have a young woman who has been taught swordsmanship but has never really had those skills applied. She knows what she should want, but her character arc in this picture involves discovering what she needs.

The chemistry between Rin and Manji is great. The two are funny, touching, and their scenes together are loaded with subtle signs of their growing respect as well as individual character growth. Rin is a wide-eyed girl with rings hanging from her braided hair, and although she draws steel quite often and demands the blood of her enemies, she remains the voice of a kind of romanticism that just does not exist outside of courtly stories. At least it seldom exists in this world. She will passionately expound upon her expectations to threatening individuals or groups. At one point, she even manages to stop an army and chastise them for behaving in a dishonorable way, for ganging up hundreds against one. In these moments, Rin becomes the voice of a child who may be growing up through her experiences but who refuses to accept the fallen world and strives for something far more elevated. When this tirade is interrupted by Manji, the voice of experience to her more-or-less innocence, chastising her for being baka (stupid), he speaks as a member of the film’s real, gritty world. These two characters have to find middle ground to meet at, and when they do those dialogue pieces and character interaction scenes are heartfelt and downright beautiful.

Juxtaposed with this beauty is a lotta lotta lot of brutality, and it is often delivered with devilish grins or grim, battle-hardened and otherwise emotionless faces. Men of arms are inured to the pain and suffering they cause and endure; they are the movie’s worst crew of cutthroats and human monsters. It is the female characters who provide a different view on the horrors perpetrated in the picture, including Rin, the mighty Makie Otono-Tachibana (Erika Toda), as well as the eight hundred year old Yaobikuni (Yoko Yamamoto) who infected Manji with bloodworms in the first place. Each of them are badasses in their own right whether or not they can kill by the score when they are caught in the moment . . . Each of the film’s major female characters find themselves touched by and sometimes overwhelmed with empathy when the battling is done and they remember both who they are and how their deeds have impacted others.

BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL is a romp of a samurai flick. It is an episodic story at times, and perhaps does not need a two hour and twenty minute running time, but Miike is obviously having fun with epic Edo period flicks, and that fun informs this film. The journey Rin and Manji participate in is an engaging one.

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This week’s film is available in DVD, Blu-Ray, and streaming copies. Check it out. As well, it is based on the manga, which has run for numerous volumes. Want to check out the source material? Here is a link to the first omnibus paperback edition from Dark Horse.

Next week, we will take a look at the new occult horror flick sensation Hereditary. Since it is at theaters, there are no links we can offer. Grab a ticket and check it out.

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Self-promotion time! If you like undying samurai action, why not check out some of my Samurai of Hell stories? They are reasonably priced, short tales that explore similar ground to Miike’s film. HEED THE HELL-BOUND is the first of a series of stories I wrote for the short lived but enjoyable BLAZING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE over ten years ago. Heck, the second of those stories gave me the opportunity to share a table of contents with Charles Ardai, editor of the Hard Case Crime line of novels. That series of tales currently has three titles, but a few new stories as well as a collection are in the hopper for release this year. A novel is on the docket for release as well.

This article copyright © 2018 by Daniel R. Robichaud.