Azumi 2 (4 Stars)

This film begins where the first film ended. Rather than being named "Azumi 2", as if it were a sequel, it should have been called "Azumi, Part 2". The two films build one whole. In the first film Azumi fought and killed two of the three warlords named by her master. In this film she searches for the third.

The action in this film equals the standard of that in the first film. In this film she begins to doubt her mission. Although Aya Ueto carries the film in the title role, Chiaki Kuriyama gives a dazzling performance as the beautiful but deceitful Kozue. I grew so attached to Kozue that I was sad when she was killed. Only a good actress can make the viewer feel empathy for the bad guy.

In my last post on January 11th I said I would add YouTube trailers to my blog. I added the trailers to my blog since the end of December, and I discovered to my horror that it causes my pages to take twice as long to load. This is not acceptable. I still want to put links to trailers, but I'll no longer embed them. As it turns out, there aren't any trailers for this film online. I'll find a solution starting with my next film review.