Wednesday 8 November 2017

Film Review: "Blade of the Immortal" ("無限の住人") (2017).


"To save her life he will take a thousand others" in Blade of the Immortal (無限の住人). This samurai film directed by Takashi Miike, adapted by Tetsuya Oishi, and based on the manga series of the same name created written and illustrated by Hiroaki Samura. Cursed with immortality, a highly skilled samurai in feudal Japan promises to help a young woman avenge the death of her parents. Their mission leads them into a bloody battle with a ruthless warrior and his band of master swordsmen.

The film stars Takuya Kimura, Hana Sugisaki, Sota Fukushi, Hayato Ichihara, Erika Toda, Kazuki Kitamura, Chiaki Kuriyama, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Ichikawa Ebizō XI, and Min Tanaka. The cast all gave impressive performances that brought Samura's characters to cinematic life. The film is a quiet, narratively layered period drama with a focus squarely on character.

The film offers a reason to rejoice, allowing Miike to stretch his abilities in a film that's deliberately paced, but moving nonetheless in invoking an emotion rarely seen in his films before: mercy. Miike is content showing himself a stylist that has understood what it takes to be a good genre filmmaker today. A cinematic work of art, presenting a world in which humanity is banished in favour of the rituals of an ever-warring people. The emphasis throughout is not on action, but melodrama - with a rather long and overstated middle section devoted to Manji's backstory which has little dramatic tension. The film reveals yet another facet of this always-unpredictable filmmaker: a flair for compassionate, humane melodrama. The film is another solid rather than flamboyant film from Japan's master of extreme Miike. The film may be a lesser Miike work, but it's still a (literally) gutsy exercise in prolonged narrative recursiveness. In turn, cruel, savage, humane, joyful and finally devastating and visually transcendent. The tragedy Miike aims for somehow eludes him within these under-lit interiors and shooting through netting that often blurs facial expressions. Miike can't seem to get enough of Manji's heroics. That's not just visual excess, though. There are many more enlightening and entertaining films out there about ancient Japanese traditions that are far more deserving of your time. Miike brings a formal, elegant restraint to his usual flair for wild theatrics. More moving than shocking, it proceeds slowly and gracefully, and the few scenes of bloodshed are emotionally intense rather than showily sensational. The Miike of old resurfaces for the climactic sequence, but the film seems intent on proving that his instinct to shock runs secondary to a more consistent instinct to rebel. Miike turns the format's inherent limitations, especially the tendency toward visual murkiness, to his advantage, fully immersing us in a world suffused with moral and ethical rot. Miike lets his familiar tastelessness get the better of him, relishing the grisly samurai violence in unnecessary detail. It's far from perfection but those who are more interested in consideration than carnage might find that such dignified imperfection will do. A surprisingly subdued affair, but aficionados will still find enough sword-based shenanigans to keep them engrossed.

Simon says Blade of the Immortal (無限の住人) receives:



Also, see my review for Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (一命).

No comments:

Post a Comment