Blade of the Immortal

I think the long runtimes of asian movies is to compensate their small dicks

Another very fun movie from veteran Takashi Miike (this was his 100th movie), not his best but also not his worst.

Haha, that Blonde in sejfuku like dress :D

Usually when older actress plays teenage girl it is too obvious and just cringeworthy, but I believed Rin it's about 15 or 16 year old here ...

Never having read the manga I think Miike does a great job with the movie (his 100th feature film :o). If you're up for 140 minutes of Sword play you will not be mad. For those concerned with the fact that it's based on a manga shouldn't worry that much. The fantasy aspects are quite small in this and it strips the manga-esque progression (1v1 fights) towards the end delivers action similar in scope of his 13 Assassins.
_(I attribute Rin's uselessness to the manga)_

Takashi Miike continues to maintain his good style in the visual and in the fights, in this, the script we liked less

This movie tries to be an adaptation of the original manga by adapting the whole story while at the same attempts to put Takashi Miike's original twist. It fails at both.

It should've been obvious that you can't adapt manga spanning 207 chapters long to 141 minutes movie. To compensate this, Takashi cuts story arcs and make his own plot direction, which is normal and can actually be done well. However he still attempts to give (multiple) nod(s) to the original manga, which makes the movie ended up as nerd-fest references but jumbled mess of plot.

Characters come and go. Itto-ryu becomes villains of the week. Some characters remain alive as a nod to the manga but left unseen/unexplained [spoiler](i.e. Magatsu)[/spoiler]. Even the main protagonists and villain (Manji, Rin, and Kagehisa) aren't given enough time to explore their relationship and quest(s) for revenge. Takashi's attempt at portraying dialogues between Rin and Kagehisa ended up as merely manga reference that wasted 5 minutes rather than taking that as a plot point. Shira's appearance at the end come out of nowhere, interfering with the original plot Takashi has been building up, which seems to serve nothing but another reference to the manga.

Takashi actually cuts and wraps at the important points in the manga where he tried to develop his own story. But he seemed to hesitate frequently in continuing to develop his own story. Philosophical banter between characters, especially between Manji and Shizuma Eiku which seems to be adapted straight out of the manga, felt hollow. The ending feel forced with typical shonen manga-like resolution. He should have focused on the original plot he intended to develop, or, if he wanted to adapt faithfully to the manga, should have taken one small arc instead of compressing all those at one stroke.

The fights are well choreographed as per Takashi usual, especially in Kagehisa fights in which the weight of his weapon can be felt by the audience. This is no small feat considering Rurouni Kenshin's adaptation, with Sanosuke looked like swinging plastic sword. Casts are great. However they can't save Takashi's _Blade of the Immortal_ from measly, boring 2 hours run.

Had me put a huge amount of effort to finish without rolling my eyes. I haven't seen such a bad script for samurai movies in a looong time. I get it, it's about all out blood soaked violence but guys, story anybody?? hello?? does violence and a lot of action means sacrifice / complete lack of sense-making story? and i wouldn't call the acting good neither. the girl was supposed to be the catalyst to carry the runtime. not a whining pain in the ass. If you want great violent samurai movie that blows your mind away, watch harakiri. if you want weekend macho samurai guilty pleasure, suit yourself with this one.