Azumi 2 - Death Or Love DVD > Reviews > No Kitamura= awful sequel

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Disliked it
Story	Satisfactory
Characters / Performances	Satisfactory
Special Effects	Standard
Soundtrack	Unmemorable

Advantages:	decent acting,
Disadvantages:	forgettable villains, Ryuhei Kitamura's absense

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Director: Shusuke Kaneko
Cast: Aya Ueto, Yuma Ishigaki, Chiaki Kuriyama, Shun Oguri

I loved the first Azumi, it was shot beautifully had character development, and memorable enemies such as the main bad guy Bijomaru, but with the absence of Ryuhei Kitamura, this sequel pales in comparison to the original.

The story starts straight after the events of the first film, with Nagara and Azumi the only two surviving assasins, they are pursued by the men of a warlord they assasinated, outnumbered they are forced to join forces with a resistance group and a group of fighters in order to eliminate the final warlord.

One of the main things i loved about the original Azumi film was that the vilains were very memorable, and you even found yourself rooting for them at times, but i found the enemies in this sequel to be boring and almost like cartoon characters, and instead of long epic swordfights most were very boring and did'nt last long.

Onto my next point, Azumi had a beautiful array of landscapes mountains, forests, and majestic towns and temples, but the majority of the locations in its sequel is set mostly in a forest area, and you soon get bored of the same setting.

I also thought that Chiaki Kuriyamas character was criminally underused, we got to know hardly anything about her character, i was looking forward to the film when i hard that Chiakia (Battle Royale, Kill Bill) would be appearing as an assasin in the film, but her short role in the film was a huge letdown, through no fault of her own though.

One of the films redeeming points is that it does contain a romance sideplot with Azumi and Gonkaku (one of the fighters she meets), Gonkaku very much resembles one of Azumi's fellow assasins Nachi in the first Azumi film who she was forced to kill). But while this romance subplot is welcome, it doesn't save an already dissapointing sequel

I'd only reccomend the film to people who absolutely must see the climax after the events of Azumi.