(2005, Shusuke Kaneko)
The original Azumi was based on a popular Manga series set shortly after the rise to power in the early 17th century of the ShÅgun Tokugawa Ieyasu. The story follows Azumi (played by actress and J-Pop star Aya Ueto), a female assassin whose mission is to cement the peace established by Tokugawa, and prevent Japan from lapsing back into its previous state of civil war, by disposing of the last few remaining warlords hostile to Tokugawa’s rule.
In Azumi 2, the story continues in essentially the same vein, with Azumi pursuing one final assassination target – only this time she is aided by a band of Robin Hood-style bandits, hunted by a team of super-powered enemy ninjas, and stalked by a treacherous infiltrator (played by Chiaki Kuriyama, who Western viewers will most likely recognise as Gogo, the sadistic schoolgirl assassin from Kill Bill, Volume 1).
Azumi 2, like its predecessor Azumi, somehow manages to have a script and plot that are overly simplistic and needlessly convoluted at the very same time. However, whereas director Ryuhei Kitamura (notable for his entertaining yakuza-meet-zombies romp, Versus) brought a distinctive and inventive visual flair to the fight scenes and overall comic-book feel of Azumi, Kaneko’s Azumi 2 is a limp, wooden, lacklustre, uninspired, and meandering affair. Kaneko clearly attempts to emulate Kitamura’s style by using different cinematic techniques in every fight scene, but the creativity and effectiveness of Kitamura’s deployment of multiple techniques is simply absent. (Strangely, the same can be said for Kitamura’s own Sky High.) Even the snappy, colourful comic-book feel of Azumi is lost in Azumi 2. The whole thing looks like footage of a bunch of people who got lost in a forest on the way to a cosplay convention.
Azumi 2: Death or Love @ IMDb(UK)
11 June 2006
06 June 2006
Wilde
(1997, Brian Gilbert)
The question of this film's quality rests principally on the question of the accuracy of Stephen Fry's performance in the role of Oscar Wilde. If Wilde was a gentle, sensitive, intelligent, yet generally ungraceful, awkward and bumbling sort of chap, then Fry's performance is difficult to fault. If not, then Fry (coincidentally well-known as a gentle, sensitive, intelligent, yet generally ungraceful, awkward and bumbling sort of chap) is merely playing himself, and it was a severe miscalculation to have him cast in the role. Unfortunately, the resolution of this conundrum cannot be divulged here, since my knowledge of Wilde is limited to the basic biographical facts: author and playwright; renowned wit; tried and imprisoned for homosexual acts. I have no inkling whether he was, in essence, the kind of character that Fry portrays. Frankly, I had imagined him to be more of a powerhouse, more of a force of nature, like some kind of turn-of-the-century Oliver Reed (albeit much more pithy, and not quite so drunk). As played by Fry, he comes across as a kind of ... well, as a kind of turn-of-the-century Stephen Fry. For this reason, I watched the film with an acute sense of disappointment. Whether this ought to be blamed on Fry's performance or my own distorted conception of a famous historical figure I cannot say.
There is little worth noting about the film's other aspects. Jude Law, as Wilde's lover Bosie, demonstrates his undeniable talent for playing smug and arrogant, yet fragile and disturbed, characters; but this talent is insufficient to carry a film (further evidence of which, for those who wish to seek it, can be found in Mike Nichols' dismal turd of a film Closer). Wilde chugs along in the placid, efficient and unexciting manner of a three-part Sunday afternoon BBC period drama. True: it goes some way to augment the factual understanding of viewers such as myself whose knowledge of Wilde's life may be a little sketchy. But the majority the film's attention is focused on Wilde's relationships, and remarkably little light is cast on the man as an artist and intellectual. On the whole, this is a difficult film to damn by faint praise; better, then, to damn it by vague criticism.
Wilde @ IMDb(UK)
The question of this film's quality rests principally on the question of the accuracy of Stephen Fry's performance in the role of Oscar Wilde. If Wilde was a gentle, sensitive, intelligent, yet generally ungraceful, awkward and bumbling sort of chap, then Fry's performance is difficult to fault. If not, then Fry (coincidentally well-known as a gentle, sensitive, intelligent, yet generally ungraceful, awkward and bumbling sort of chap) is merely playing himself, and it was a severe miscalculation to have him cast in the role. Unfortunately, the resolution of this conundrum cannot be divulged here, since my knowledge of Wilde is limited to the basic biographical facts: author and playwright; renowned wit; tried and imprisoned for homosexual acts. I have no inkling whether he was, in essence, the kind of character that Fry portrays. Frankly, I had imagined him to be more of a powerhouse, more of a force of nature, like some kind of turn-of-the-century Oliver Reed (albeit much more pithy, and not quite so drunk). As played by Fry, he comes across as a kind of ... well, as a kind of turn-of-the-century Stephen Fry. For this reason, I watched the film with an acute sense of disappointment. Whether this ought to be blamed on Fry's performance or my own distorted conception of a famous historical figure I cannot say.
There is little worth noting about the film's other aspects. Jude Law, as Wilde's lover Bosie, demonstrates his undeniable talent for playing smug and arrogant, yet fragile and disturbed, characters; but this talent is insufficient to carry a film (further evidence of which, for those who wish to seek it, can be found in Mike Nichols' dismal turd of a film Closer). Wilde chugs along in the placid, efficient and unexciting manner of a three-part Sunday afternoon BBC period drama. True: it goes some way to augment the factual understanding of viewers such as myself whose knowledge of Wilde's life may be a little sketchy. But the majority the film's attention is focused on Wilde's relationships, and remarkably little light is cast on the man as an artist and intellectual. On the whole, this is a difficult film to damn by faint praise; better, then, to damn it by vague criticism.
Wilde @ IMDb(UK)
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