The profession of the movie director does not always mean a special artistic style, although such persons as Christopher Nolan or Zack Snyder have made a career because of visual style, that is recognizable from the first frames. For example, the hero of today's post - Japanese director Takashi Miike went on another path, proving that the mastery of the director is ability to organize the shooting process and direct the movement of the film crew and related services to the right tracks. Thanks to this talent, multiplied by Japanese diligence, Miike, at the last Cannes festival, presented his 100th (!!!) film - adaptation of popular manga of Hiroaki Samura "Blade of the Immortal" (Mugen no Juunin).
Manzi is a professional bodyguard, good swordsman and is not deprived of a sense of justice, because of which he rebels against his master and kills him, and his fellow bodyguards. Even though one of them is the husband of his younger sister. Shocked by this event, she goes crazy, but Manzi takes her with him and tries to find a quiet place to start new life. Because the high award, they are very quickly found, and despite the fact that in an unequal battle, Manzi emerges victorious, he and his sister are killed. They were lucky that a mysterious nun passes by, which not only resurrects a brave warrior, but also settles in his body worms that will not allow him to die until a thousand scoundrels fall by his sword.
After 80 years, Manzi leads the life of a hermit on the outskirts of Edo and on the threshold of his shack a girl appears, like two drops of water, like a deceased sister and begs for help to avenge her father, who defended his martial arts school. Tired of immortality, Mandzi agrees, all the more the main culprit of the tragedy is surrounded by an entire army of bandits, rapists and other sadists who are shielded by the protection of the shogun.
If you are normal to Japanese movies and samurai fighters in particular, then I'll hasten to please - "Blade of the Immortal" is one of the best representatives of the genre and everything that the anime-serial and manga of the same name was famous for exactly where it should be. Everyone has a high blood pressure, which means that blood flows like a river, villains are so scoundrel - that it is difficult to feel sorry for them, despite the fact that each of them is essentially a hostage of circumstances and reached his place in the narrative not from a good life. Well, about the dynamics in general it's better not to say anything - rubilovo, mochilovo and kromsalovo makes very small stops and willy-nilly you start to think about the fact that Scorsese in the recent "Silence" seriously softened the realities of the brutal and ruthless Japanese middle ages.
Bribes that the film is made very inexpensively, but in its own way beautiful. Not like in the visually beautiful kung fu drama "Crouching Tiger, Dragged Dragon," but rather with an eye for the "7 Samurai" Kurosawa or "Zatoichi" Takeshi Kitano. Realistic, tough, with a clang of blades and short bickers of real masters. A man with a past, steel eggs and a character capable of sweeping away any obstacle.
After the first scene, to the delight of especially impressionable spectators made black and white and a lot of perfectly arranged fights strung as tempura on the bamboo stick of the plot, you understand why Quietin Tarantino resorts to Miike for advice, or to star in episodic roles for a couple of dollars. After all, Takashi is exactly the person who, thanks to perseverance and diligence, became the face of the cinematography of the Сountry of the Rising Sun and, after loud failures or extremely specific fantastic films, returns to the legends of his homeland and shows how the right fighter about the samurai should look.