Blade of the Immortal (Mugen No Jûnin) Review: Disposable Hack and Slash Flick

Blade of the Immortal is based on a manga and despite a 30 volume series that span over 20 years, the creators behind the samurai movie managed to create decent adaptation.

Tetsuya Oishi structured the plot around one-on-one duels that culminates into one big showdown. Takashi Miike pits Manji against a range of enemies including a grotesque henchman, a prostitute who’s secretly warrior, and your old-fashioned bounty hunter.

While the themes – life and death, sin and redemption – explored by the manga are inevitably skimmed over to condense the material, the story still has interesting subplots – rival schools, political conspiracy, and the tragedy of immortality that prevent the story from getting monotonous.

The cinematography here compensates for the lack of sword choreography, with close-ups and medium shots that when pulled back, reveal a stunning display of carnage. The set pieces are generic but the costumes are decent enough and the musical score stands out in highlight moments.

Overall though, Blade of the Immortal is nothing more than a straightforward action flick hampered by forgettable elements, a muted Takashi Miike, and a bloated running time of more than 2 hours.

The leading characters, Takuya Kimura and Hana Sugisaki who play Manji and Rin respectively, don’t have any chemistry. While both are decent enough, they’re easily overshadowed by the more charismatic Sota Fukushi, who manages to convey the duality of his character with depth.

Anotsu’s Itto-ryu is supposed to be a lethal group but unless you’re familiar with the manga, you won’t get a sense of how dangerous they are in the movie.

The duels have some inventive moments because of the movie’s supernatural elements, but the action scenes get repetitive fast, mostly depending on how much punishment the hero can take. The swordplay here is free-form and brutal but if you’re expecting more than stabbing, impalement, and dismemberment, you won’t find a Chanbara here.

For a movie that easily lends itself to gore under the hands of Takashi Miike, the action just goes through the motions especially when you consider that this is the director of Ichi the Killer.

In fairness, the makers behind this adaptation are saddled with hefty source material and still manage to deliver a serviceable samurai movie.