Reaction & Review | Matango

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a Japanese horror film from 1963. That movie is "Matango".

Now, originally, when I read first read that title on the DVD case, I honestly thought it was called "Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People", since it had that surname. Which would've sounded like a really cheesy, goofy, yet sorta awesome title at the same time. Because sometimes, those sorts of names really do catch your eye, especially if you're into these sorts of oddball movies like I am. Sadly though, that's not the case here. Instead, the "Attack of the Mushroom People" name was used to release this movie in the U.S. as a TV film in 1965. Now what's a little strange about this is the fact that there *is* an English dub for it, but nobody knows when it was actually released. I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say *maybe* it was released in between 1963 and 1965. Again, that's just a guess I'm making there, so make of that what you will.

So, setting all that aside, what do I know about tonight's movie? Well, a couple of things. First of all, it was distributed by Toho, the same company that releases all of the Godzilla movies. And the other thing I know about this movie is that it was almost banned in Japan entirely, mainly because the makeup effects on the actors faces supposedly resembled the disfigurements of the victims from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Now, in a way, I can kinda understand the reasoning behind it, because it only happened 18 years ago at the time of this movie's release. And, well, Japan is still very sensitive about that sort of subject for obvious reasons. So, I'm not about to claim that whether or not the decision regarding this reasoning was right or wrong.

Having said that, though, this movie did eventually get released, and I already explained how, so I'm not about to repeat myself there on that front. So, I'm hoping for this movie to be pretty good. I don't know if it will be or not, but that's what this series is here for. And the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is any good at all, is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Matango".

7 minutes later

Well, guys, I believe I can start off by saying that this English dub here is kinda shit so far. I mean, granted, our dubs weren't really good at all back during those days, but this dub is just kinda proving that, since most of the acting here sounds incredibly wooden. I'm hoping, maybe, that I'll get use to this really wooden acting, but I'm not totally sure if I will.

19 minutes later

All right, guys, now that we're almost a half an hour into the movie, I'm gonna ask this. When exactly does it start to get interesting? I'm asking this, because this thing is becoming incredibly boring so far. I get that the movie is trying to soak you into it's atmosphere. But honestly, it's really not that impressive to look at. And I'm just hoping that, maybe, this movie will start to pick up soon and we can actually get our plot rolling here. As of right now, though, I'm slowly beginning to lose interest.

20 minutes later

Seriously, guys, I want to know, *when* does this movie actually start to get interesting? I have been patient now for quite a while, and my patience is beginning to wear thin on how dis-interesting this movie has become. I'm not sure if the next half of the movie is even going to get any better. I'm hoping it does, but at this rate, I'm beginning to lose hope here.

9 minutes later

Wait wait wait, wait a second here! So, that encounter they had with the unknown creature last night was real. And they all acknowledge that it happened. OK then, so...what *did* happen last night? Because, they showed the creature opening the door, and after that, the scene transitioned to them having breakfast the next morning, as if what happened last night...never actually happened! Did I miss something here? Because that scene made no fucking sense whatsoever, because no one said anything about it up until now. Guys, I'm at the point where I'm not even gonna question this thing anymore because not only has it been boring as shit, but now it's decided to not make any sense. I hope it does soon, but at this point, I really don't think it's going to.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Matango". And thank Christ, this thing is fucking over. Let me shut this garbage off here...OK. Wow, that was...massively disappointing. I don't think I've ever been this disappointed about a movie in a very long time, but this...yeah, this one definitely fits the disappointing category.

So, I guess, without further delay, I may as well get into this review proper by first discussing the writing. Now I will say that the plot here is very simple, in concept anyway. We have a group of people shipwrecked on a mysterious island where it's inhabited by strange-looking mushrooms, and they have to try and survive by looking for food on the island, while also trying to find a way off the island while they're there. And at the same time, they also get to learn more about the true nature of the island and the mushrooms in general. So yeah, like I said, the plot here is pretty simple. OK sure, it's not entirely an original plot, but at least it is easy to understand...for the most part, anyway. I'll get a little more in depth on this later, but I will say that it could've worked, had the script for this thing been written better, and had the story been more interesting.

But that becomes a problem right there, because this movie is just so *painfully* dull, to where almost nothing of interest happens here. The movie tries to build some level of suspense, but like I said, most of it doesn't amount up to anything, and what they do try to build up doesn't really make any sense. And aside from all that, most of the movie is just our characters trying to find food to survive or just them resting inside a ship that they found on the island to make themselves at home, and to be honest with you, guys, it's really boring to watch, because, like I already said, nothing really happens here. Which brings me into another point in which I'll say that the pacing in this movie is just *bad*. This movie has so much padding here that they really could've cut out a lot of it and the film would've flowed better. I'm not saying that it would've been great, but it could've been a much better paced movie.

Speaking of which, let's actually talk about that scene I mentioned earlier that made no sense at all. So, around the halfway point of the film, we see one of these fungus-looking creatures sneaking aboard the ship. One of the crew members in red discovers the creature, and starts to run away from it, reuniting with the other characters. This leads into them fortifying their defenses, and when the creature opens the door, we actually get a first look at it...and then the scene suddenly fades to black, transitioning it into them having breakfast together. Again, I ask, what exactly happened with the prior scene? Was there some sort of fight sequence that I missed? My original thought was that our characters somehow ended up killing the creature, and used it's remains to have their breakfast. Which, thinking about it now, would've been a really stupid idea, considering you don't know where this creature came from to begin with. But during the breakfast, nobody ever brought that up! And then I thought maybe there was a deleted scene in which it never made it to TV broadcast and that I would hope to find it on the DVD extras. But again, that's not the case because, one, there are no extras involving deleted scenes on the DVD. And two, the scene doesn't get mentioned until nearly 10 minutes later! Which, again, begs the question of what exactly happened the night before where they first fully encountered that creature? Sadly, we never get to see that. So really, the scene is left very poorly up to interpretation.

Another thing that this movie fumbles upon is the characters. Now you think that with a movie like this that's centered around our characters trapped on a mysterious island, that you would care about these characters struggles as they try to survive, but unfortunately, this movie doesn't really execute that well at all. Every character here is very shallow and flat, in terms of both personality and depth. In fact, I could barely remember their names, save for Kasai, Yoshida, and Mirei. And even then, their characters are all flat and lifeless. The only traits I could pick up from most of them was that one of them is a singer, AKA Mirei. Yoshida, who I *think* is suppose to be a writer but I honestly don't remember. Kasai, who's just part of the crew. Another one is the skipper, we have our main character, who I honestly don't remember *anything* about him, and another girl who tends to act sickly a lot. And that's it. That is *all* for character depth and personality. None of them give you a reason to care about them, and their motivations, half the time, don't make any sense at all. Which kinda makes sense, considering how the story itself makes little to no sense, despite having a simple premise.

So yeah, guys, writing here is terrible here from every direction that this movie goes into. Now while I'm kinda sorta on the subject, the acting for this dub is terrible as well. I kinda had a feeling that it wasn't going to get any better the moment that I mentioned the dub being kinda shit, and well, unsurprisingly, it didn't get any better. Most of the acting here is very wooden, and any attempts to give out some sort of emotion for these actor's dialogue just comes across as being very stilted and phoned in. Now again, I totally understand that dubs like these back in the day, we didn't care if they were terrible, we just put them out there and leave it at that. But I feel like this dub is probably one of the worser ones out there. I can't even say that this movie's dub is so bad it's laughable, it's just...terrible. Now the good news here is that, if you seriously want to watch this thing, there is an option on the DVD where you can switch it over to the subtitles with it's original Japanese audio. So, at least there's that, and it might make for a somewhat lesser painful experience. Granted, that's not saying a whole lot, but at least it is something.

Special effects here are actually halfway decent. The makeup effects you see here, whether it's that creature I mentioned earlier, or the makeup effects involving the actors being turned into mushrooms, that stuff looked genuinely decent. Now granted, I can't really judge if the criticisms involving the makeup effects are accurate to what I talked about at the beginning of this R&R, but I honestly don't care and I don't feel like it should affect the overall film. I'll just leave at that by, again, stating that the makeup effects are decent. The costumes on the mushroom people look OK too, though admittedly, they're not really in the movie for that long. Which is honestly rather disappointing, considering the title and all. But setting that aside, the sets here involving the island actually look really good. Admittedly, I don't know how much this movie was going for in terms of it's budget, but I'm gonna take an estimated guess and say it was probably on the lower side. So anyway, the special effects, overall, I can say range on being rather decent.

Camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting here is lit very well. But then again, a lot of this movie was shot outdoors, considering the setting of this movie and all. So there is that. Sound-mix here is mixed pretty well. The score, though, honestly kinda ranges on being forgettable to kinda shit. I say that, because this movie uses quite a bit of synth music, and it's really not the good kind of synth music that's interesting to listen to. Beyond that, I really can't say much else about the music here, so I can probably put that one on the negative side of things.

Overall, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Matango"? Personally no, because I really think this movie is just so poorly written. And I don't really think that, even if you switched it over to the Japanese dub, it will make the movie that much better. That being said, there might just be one way that I could recommend this film to anyone. I'm mostly gonna recommend this thing to stoners. And the reason why I'm targeting them is because this movie tries to go for the psychedelic mindset, when it comes to the mushrooms in this movie. I won't spoil too much about it, but there is a sequence or two involving them. So, stoners, if you're looking for a kind of film that you can get high off of, then knock yourself out with this one. You might honestly really enjoy the movie much better if you were high off your ass. But for everyone else...no. You can just skip this one. There really isn't anything here that will grab your interest, since this movie is mostly boring as shit anyways. Now, as for me, I'm probably gonna go and watch something better. Perhaps maybe I'll just watch something like "Gremlins". It's kind of a weird film, but definitely a classic one, too. So I'm gonna go do that next and hopefully get this movie's memory wiped away from my mind, the sooner the better.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Dead Snow

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror comedy from 2009. That movie is "Dead Snow".

So, similar to a few other genres of film that I haven't covered in a while, movies about zombies are another one on that list. And there is kind of a reason as to why. The main reason being that I'm still sick and tired of zombies, even after all this time. And I probably should be over that fad by this point, but you should also understand that, in case you weren't around then, zombies were fucking everywhere around the early 2010's. I would say it probably started around 2010, and the fad for them died around the middle of 2014. Mind you, that is just an estimated guess, but my point still stands. Zombies aren't really something that I'm all excited for, especially films involving them.

So, exactly why now am I covering this thing? Well, as much as I'm not really that big a fan of zombie movies, I do enjoy horror comedies, as long as they're funny, anyway. And I've heard a lot of good things about this movie. Now as for what I know about it, all I can tell you is that it involves Nazi zombies. Which sounds pretty cool. I mean, hey, if you're gonna do a zombie film, why not include Nazi's and make them zombies as well? It sounds really promising on paper.

So, I'm hoping for this thing to be as great as from what I've heard about it. Of course, I have been proven wrong before from people who say that a movie's great, and when I eventually watched this supposed great movie...it really wasn't that great. But still, I am holding out hopes for this one on being great. And the only way I'm gonna find out if it is great at all, is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Dead Snow".

14 minutes later

So, Martin was suffocating his girlfriend with a pillow...and I'm not totally why he was doing that. I mean, he didn't have any real malicious intent, as he was obviously joking, but I'm still not totally sure why he did that to begin with. I could maybe understand if this was part of his training on wanting to become a doctor, but no, at least not as far as I could see, anyway.

14 minutes later

You know, guys, I'm *really* liking the amount of tension that's being built up in this movie. It's actually doing it in a way in which I honestly can't wait to see what happens next!

8 minutes later

So, all of our characters are messing around with the gold that the movie nerd found. Yet, also earlier, it was Martin who suggested to keep the gold inside the wooden box until Vegarde finds Sara. My guess is that they all got tired of waiting, or they're currently busy being drunk to not care about that rule. Either way, I guess Martin's suggestion didn't really matter much, now did it?

12 minutes later

Well, damn, that kill looked rather brutal, as one of our Nazi zombies crushed the guy's head off like a melon! That was pretty cool, I must say.

11 minutes later

You know, I never thought I'd ever say this about a zombie anything, but that's probably the first and only time I've ever seen someone hanging from a cliff by holding onto a Nazi zombie's intestines as rope. That's actually really creative, and I don't think I would've ever came up with something like that myself.

7 minutes later

OK, that was probably the shittiest-fucking throw I have ever seen in almost any movie ever. That's gotta be a record for something, right? Because, I'm having a hard time trying to think up of any other instance where something like that might've happened, but no, I can't think of anything. So yeah, I can say that was probably the worst throw ever.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Dead Snow" Let me go ahead and shut the film off here...OK. Well, I gotta say that, after finally getting a chance to watch this thing, I'm actually kinda surprised. I had heard good things about it, sure, but I still wanted to lower my expectations a bit, considering that I somewhat hate it when someone hypes up a movie so much to a point where it either doesn't live up to it, or it just flat out sucks. Well, I can say that the movie is actually pretty good for the most part. Mind you, it isn't a great movie, but I will get into all of that in a second here.

Right now, though, I may as well just start things off by talking about the writing here. And the first thing I want to talk about is the movie's humor. Now, as I said earlier, this thing is suppose to be a horror comedy about Nazi zombies. And I'm totally cool with that, as long as you do something interesting with it while also being funny at the same time. And it certainly does have it's hilarious moments. However, I feel as if this movie doesn't really lean too much into the comedy here. Now let me reiterate again by stating that the movie *is* certainly really funny. But most of the comedy in this movie doesn't really kick in up until the last half hour of the movie or so. For the most part, the movie tries to play it up as straight as possible. Now perhaps maybe I'm somehow misinterpreting in someway. Maybe it's because that it's trying to play itself up as being straight up that it somehow makes the whole movie even funnier. Which, it *could* be possible, and perhaps maybe if I watch this thing a second or third time, I might be able to see more of the comedy that's missing here. But as it is, most of that is, like I already said, regulated into the last half hour of the film. Which is a bit too long, if you ask me.

Speaking of which, let's get into the second problem that this movie suffers from, which is the pacing. This movie has a bit of a slow boil going on. And for, like, the first 40 minutes or so, nothing really much happens here. We got about a couple of kills here and there, but they're very spaced out. We also get exposition about the Nazi's from this old guy who appears one time in the movie, and completely disappears afterwards to never be seen again. And aside from that, most of that is just our characters messing around inside their cabin. Which isn't really all that interesting to be perfectly honest here. And the fact it took a little over 40 minutes for the movie to get interesting is what sorta dampers the film a bit. Now I will say that after the first 40 minutes goes on by, the movie actually does start to really pick up from there. It's just you have to have a bit of patience with the first 40 minutes of film if you want to get into the more interesting stuff afterwards.

Our characters aren't really all that interesting, personality wise. I honestly couldn't even remember half of the characters names, because most of them are that forgettable. The only one that I can remember by name is Martin, who's also the only character I can remember as well, since he's the guy who wants to become a doctor. The only quirk though is that he's afraid of blood. Which is sorta laughable, because later on in the film, you can see that his entire face is almost covered in blood. Which makes the whole thing about him fearing blood rather irrelevant. But then again, from a narrative perspective, I think it kinda makes sense, considering the whole Nazi zombies and everything going on. So, I can at least grant that to his character. Our Nazi zombies are also devoid of personality, but then again, they *are* Nazi zombies, so I can give them a pass on this one.

Overall, guys, the writing here is pretty good, when it wants to get going. It's just certain things here and there, such as the pacing being a bit slow, and the comedy not really happening until the last half hour so of the movie, that ultimately stops it from being great. But with that said, let's actually get into the acting here. Now, I do have to confess something. Originally, I first started watching the movie with it's original Norwegian dub, however, I did notice on the back of the DVD case that it does have the option to watch it with an English dub. So, I opted to watch that instead, because I wasn't really all that interested in watching it in it's original language. And I will say that the dub here is halfway decent. There are a couple of instances of phoned in acting that happen, mostly from whoever they got to dub over Martin's dialogue here. That said, though, he still did an OK job with the material that he was given to work with. Everyone else did a pretty good job, too. Now while I obviously can't judge the Norwegian acting here, since I watched very little of it before I switched to the English dub, I can tell from their body language that they looked like they had a lot of fun in this movie, so I can at least grant them that. Overall, guys, the English dub is OK for what it is, though the option for the original Norwegian dub is also available too, just in case.

Special effects here are great, especially for low budget standards. The blood effects are great, along with the gore here as well. There are small instances of CG blood used as well, however, given that it closely resembles the practical blood effects, you won't really notice them all that much, if at all. So, this is one of those rare instances where I can accept the CG blood for what it is. The makeup effects on our Nazi zombies all look great, along with the costuming as well. All of it here is great, and given the low budget, they definitely used it to their advantage here.

Camerawork here is really good. The lighting here is great. But then again, most of this movie took place outdoors, so I would expect the lighting here to be great just based on that fact alone. Sound-mix here is mixed fine. The music here actually consists of Norwegian rock music. Now obviously, I haven't really listened to a whole lot of Norwegian rock music. In fact, this is my first time hearing it in this movie. But I will say that it actually does sound pretty good. Maybe I'll give the soundtrack more of a listen to at some point, but I can, again, say that what is hear is pretty good, so I can give the music here a plus for this movie.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Dead Snow"? Yes, I most certainly can. If, once again, provided that you're able to overlook the somewhat slow pacing of the first 40 minutes or so, along with the comedy portion of the movie not happening until the last half hour or so as well. But other than that, this is a rather good effort. I'm probably gonna be watching this again at some point. I don't know if it's something I would watch as a yearly tradition around Christmas time, but it is still definitely worth checking out, if at least once. So yeah, I can totally recommend "Dead Snow" to you guys. It's not a great horror comedy, but still worth checking out in my book. And speaking of horror comedies, I'm gonna go and re-pop in my copy of "Dead & Breakfast", since that, to me, is a great horror comedy involving zombies.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Azumi

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Japanese action film from 2003. That movie is "Azumi".

Now, I honestly don't really know a whole lot about this movie, other than a couple of things. For starters, this movie is apparently a live action adaptation of a manga series with the same name. Now I obviously have never read it. But then again, upon doing the small amount of research for this movie, I just found out about that information. And, much like I've done with many other adaptation films for this series, I am not even gonna bother comparing to it's manga counterpart. I really only care if it can stand or fall on it's own standards.

Now, one other thing that I discovered about this movie is what I read on the back of the DVD case. Not so much about the plot or anything, but a caption that I found on the very top of it. It says that this movie is from the director of "Versus" and also the producer for "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust". Now while I haven't seen "Versus" yet, I *have* seen "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust". And for those of you who might already know, I love that movie. So, there is a chance here that this movie could be really great.

That said, I'm not totally sure what to expect from this movie. Like I said, I'm hoping for it to be really good, but then again, it could also find a way to really suck. I'm hoping that it doesn't suck, but still, it could be a possibility. But there's really only one way for me to find out. And the only way I'm gonna find out for myself is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Azumi".

18 minutes later

You know, guys, it's kinda messed up to know that this old guy raised these kids up to become would-be assassins, just so he can order them to kill each other in order to prove that they can succeed in their mission. I sorta get the method behind his reasoning, but it *is* still kinda fucked up to go through with this sort of ordeal, you know what I mean?

2 minutes later

So, not only did half of these kids get killed off, but they also burned their entire home down before leaving. OK, I said that I sorta understood the master's methods behind his students killing each other, but why burn your house down afterwards? I know he said that they were going to leave the mountain, but why go to the effort of burning down your entire home? It just seems kinda stupid to me, but hey, who am I to judge the master's way of thinking?

9 minutes later

OK, guys, I just learned something new today. If you throw a big enough rock into a river of water, you'll be able to catch a lot of fish by having them splash out of the water all at once. I'm not totally sure how practical that is among fishing, but at least it's sort of an interesting method, to say the least.

15 minutes later

So, the warlord that our heroes assassinated was actually a fucking body double? That is sorta cool to know, but what I'm curious about now is how exactly did they go to the effort of getting that body double? Did they just find somebody who mostly resembled what the warlord looked like, or was it just something like one of those ninjitsu abilities where they make some sort of substitute doll in his place? I understand it's kind of a trivial point and all, but it is something that I'm a little curious about.

17 minutes later

OK, that's certainly weird. I wouldn't expect one of these bandits to say "give me a second" before suddenly collapsing after getting stabbed to death. Kinda funny, but still rather odd to me, you know what I mean?

19 minutes later

You know, guys, this fight scene here is pretty cool and everything. And I would probably like this fight scene more if the background of the sky didn't keep changing from between night and day. It's becoming a little bit distracting here, which is a shame because, like I said, this fight scene is really well done. I just wish I could focus on that more than the changing of the sky between shots here, you know? 

20 minutes later

Sorry if I'm not saying a whole lot here, guys, I'm kinda getting immersed myself into the story here. It's been rather good so far, minus a couple of hiccups here and there, which I'll talk about more when I get into the review for this thing.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Azumi". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...all right. So, where do I begin here? Well, as I kinda already mentioned earlier, I said that the movie was rather good as I began immersing myself into this movie's story. And for the most part, I really enjoyed this thing. Mind you, the film does have a couple of problems here and there, but I still rather liked it overall.

So with that said, let's get into the review proper here by first discussing the writing. Now, earlier this year, I reviewed a couple of martial arts films known as "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion" and "The Bloody Fists". And the reason why I'm bringing them up is because this movie is kinda sorta similar to those movies, in which it's trying to tell some kind of compelling story while also blending in it's action scenes as well. But the difference between this movie and those two films is that the latter two failed to get out some kind of story that made little to no sense whatsoever. Now, I can't be entirely too harsh on those movies because, like I mentioned in both of those reviews, it's possible that there might've been some sort of an issue with the translation of dubbing those movies into English. But still, my point is that, with what was given to us in those movies, neither one of them were successful in telling any sort of story that tried to be interesting or entertaining, aside from their fight choreography being really solid.

Which then brings me to "Azumi". Now, while the movie doesn't necessarily have a lot of over-the-top action scenes, I will say that the story here is solid enough to where you could follow it while also being immersed into the action scenes as well. A lot of it is just a bunch of sword fighting, but it is still really cool to see, as you watch our main characters go up against ninjas, samurais, and bandits along the way. I guess I'm probably jumping ahead here a bit by talking about the fight choreography rather than the story here, but again, I am gonna say that the fight choreography is rather solid. And I guess since I've already jumped ahead here, I'm also gonna say that the special effects are pretty good for the most part. There's a lot of blood pouring in this movie from all of the kills here, and most of it is great. There are also a couple of instances of CG, such fire, explosions, and a couple of blood effects here and there. And while some of that looked a little cheap, the practical effects definitely more than make up of what little CG is used here. And the costuming here is really good, too, as it fits that style of very early Japan. So, there is that.

But I should probably go back to the writing, since I sorta skipped ahead a bit there. The story is essentially a coming of age for Azumi. Where she gets taken in by her master as a little girl after she loses her mother in, admittedly, a very vague way. She then gets raised up with her adopted brothers as they are all equally trained under their master, who all eventually grow up to become trained assassins. And their mission is given to them from their master, who says that they must kill the warlords who are trying to start up a war that may possibly happen soon. And it's from here where we get a little more insight of Azumi's character, where she starts to question stuff like whether or not the people they are killing are actually bad people. Or when one of their comrades is slowly dying from a poisoning, she's wondering why if it's OK to senselessly kill warlords but not to save the life of someone who's on the verge of dying. Now granted, the dying assassin kinda hid that fact from his master, probably because he didn't want them to worry. But still, it does change Azumi's character a bit after she shortly leaves the group, along with another one of the brothers named Hyuga.

And it's here where I can say that our characters here are very well developed. Mind you, not all of the assassin brothers don't get that much development, unlike Azumi. The only exception to this is the one I just mentioned by name, Hyuga. He actually ends up falling for a girl named Yai, who is a traveling performer, and also joins Azumi for a little bit. She actually ends up playing a bit of a role too, where she tries to teach Azumi to speak and act like more like a girl. She also attempts Azumi to retire the sword as well, though that ends up getting cut short when they get ambushed by bandits after one of them is attempting to rape Yai. So, on a character growth level, Azumi is easily the best developed. You have a reason to care about her as she goes along her journey of what she must do and where she ends up as an assassin. And it's really good stuff here.

Now like I said earlier, the film does have a couple of problems, minus some of the dated CG and all. First of all, the main villain is kind of a weak character, as he's mostly just an androgynous, cartoonish villain. At least, that's the kind of vibe I got out of him anyway. Secondly, the pacing is a little bit on the slow side. The movie is roughly about 2 hours long, and there were a couple of moments near the end where it could've actually ended, but still kept on going. But I still think it's worth the 2 hours of it's runtime. There is one other issue that I'll get into a little bit later on, but I will say that the film does try to inject some humor into itself, while trying to space out the dramatic scenes that happen quite a bit in this movie. Granted, this film is ultimately more of a drama, but there is enough of a breathing space to where the movie isn't totally drowned by it's dramatic moments.

So overall, guys, the writing here is really good for the most part, and I would say it's one of the better action films I've seen from an Asian country in quite a while. And as for the acting, well, I have to go by off the English dub that I opted to watch. And I will say that the dub here, at least on a voice acting level, is pretty good, but there is something that I noticed which could be more of a distracting issue. Now it may just be me that noticed this, but for some reason, some of the dialogue is about a second late whenever a character is about to talk or finished talking. I noticed this, because it happened pretty early on in the film, and it's quite noticeable throughout a good portion of the movie. Now mind you, it doesn't ultimately ruin it, but it could potentially distract you, especially if you're someone who watches English dubs. Now with that said, there is an option to where you could watch it with the Japanese audio with English subtitles. So if you're not a fan of dubs, the option to switch it over to the subtitles is there. But overall, guys, the acting here is pretty decent for what it is, despite some minor syncing issues.

I need to talk about editing for a moment. Now I talked about this way early on, but it bears repeating. There's a fight scene that goes on in this movie between two guys, and it's honestly a pretty decent fight, too. However, the biggest downside to all this is the time of day that they're suppose to be fighting in. See, before the fight happens, there's a scene that takes place during the night. But as soon as the fight starts up, you'll get to see them clashing swords while the sky changes from between night and day. Now this would've sorta made sense *if* they were fighting for days upon end for some stupid reason. But no, it was really just a case of poor editing, because you'll get to see glimpses of a grey sky in some shots, along with some shots of the sunlight, and then nightfall. And all of this is mixed together really poorly, because none of it was consistent. Not only that, but also with the grey sky that shows up when they're fighting, I couldn't tell you if it was taking place while the sun was going up or if it was going down. I don't know, but it was a rather distracting moment of the film that you'll definitely notice for yourself, especially if you end up looking for it like I did.

But otherwise, guys, camerawork here is pretty good. Though admittedly, there is one shot of the movie during the final fight, where we get to see the camera go around the two actors in a vertical fashion, and while the shot looked cool at first, it is a bit disorienting, too. So just be wary of that shot when it happens. Lighting here is lit really well, as most of the entire movie was shot outdoors. Sound-mix here is really good, and the score is also really good, too. So, technically speaking, the movie here looks and sounds great.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Azumi"? Oh yes, certainly, guys. It is a really solid movie. I, myself, wasn't totally sure if I would like it or not, but it wound up almost kinda surprising me a bit. If you, yourself, are a fan of action movies featuring ninjas and whatnot, then you'll most definitely find something to like here. Now I should also mention that this movie apparently has a sequel as well, and I may actually try to track down the sequel somewhere and cover it for this series. But as for this film, well, like I already said, I can definitely recommend this movie to you guys. And if you're someone that's only seen action movies made in the U.S., and you want to see something a little bit different outside of it, then this movie is certainly worth checking out, if at least once. And as for me, well, I did like it enough to hold onto my DVD collection, so I'll probably watch it again at some point. For now, though, I'm gonna go and watch something else. And you know what? It's been almost a year, but I kinda want to go and rewatch my copy of "The Great Yokai War" again. I want to see if that movie still holds up, seeing as how it's almost been a year since I covered it. So yeah, that's what I'm gonna go do next once I get done uploading this review.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.