Azumi 2: Death or Love (2005)

It's been a long wait for me for the continuation of the original Azumi. Azumi ended at such a crucial point that as soon as an English subbed version of the sequel was available, it was in my hands.

Azumi 2 is every bit as touching, amazing and downright brilliant as the first instalment. The characters are as easy to attach to as those in the original film, the battle sequences just as brimming with amazing CGI and breathtaking choreography (the human spider sequence in the bamboo forest will have you gripping your palms 'til they pour with sweat).

With a new director on board it was easy to mess this one up, but it shines just as well as its predecessor.

Azumi 2 is without a doubt one of the best sequels made for a Japanese film. Lets just hope Hollywood don't buy the rights to create another shoddy remake.

Fmovies: I'm a huge fan of the first one and as much as i hate agreeing with some of the comments, well I do. This isn't even close to the first, simply because kitamura's touch was missing badly. The unique sense of camera angles, sword fights, wire work etc... There's still plenty of violence and blood but not quite as impressive and breathtaking as the first. I hoped for kitamura's direction as it really would have been more intense than the first but not everything goes our way. Still the acting was good and the scene with a copy of the ninja scroll sword boomerang was pretty cool I must say.

Nevertheless I still love this simply because I love the franchise of this type of samurai flick and once again the cute aya ueto's presence once more. Recommended to all action and samurai fans out there. 10/10 simply because it's still a great movie with ueto in it...

Wow, now that's some neat action. Azumi is back and this movie turned out to be really great for being a follow up. I agree with many people in that the first piece is better than this one, but this one is still great. I felt that this piece really tied up the plot well, by adding this one together with the first movie. Here we get the pleasure to meet a bunch of new character, but they've also chosen to keep the same actors from the first movie - which came as a great surprise to me as too many plots which develops into series have a vital problem with keeping the actors from the first movie. If you like the first Azumi movie you will definitely like this one, and if you're yet not an Azumi fan you will most likely be one in the near future if you choose to experience the series. A warning though, you should really see the first movie first because I can't imagine myself even getting half of the plot here if I wouldn't have seen the first one before. Azumi to the bone! 7/10!

Azumi 2: Death or Love fmovies. I loved the first "Azumi" movie. I've seen Ms. Ueto in a variety of her TV appearances and I've seen my fair share of samurai and ninja flicks. I have to say that this movie was much weaker than I'd expected.

Given the movie's cast and set up in "Azumi", they should have been able to do a much better job with this movie, but instead it was slow, plodding in parts, and sprinkled with very poor, unconvincing, and wooden acting.

When they bothered to reference the first movie, they did so in a manner that was pretty loose and weak. In "Azumi", the title character is the best of a group of superior killers. In "Azumi 2" she seems somehow diminished and less-impressive.

That's not to say it was a total loss. There were a few decent fight scenes and some over-the-top characters. Unfortunately, the movie suffers overall from the simple fact that Shusuke Kaneko and Yoshiaki Kawajiri are not Ryuhei Kitamura and Isao Kiriyama. The latter two truly captured the "manga" feel in their screenplay whereas the former never quite "got it."

I loved the first Azumi movie; it had lots of action, lots of story, and lots of symbolism. Azumi ended up as a cool avenging angel with the Herculean task of ending all war - and she had the charisma and determination to make the viewer believe that she might actually succeed! It was an epic samurai youth fantasy movie that worked on many levels - possibly the best Japanese movie I've seen. I rated it 9 out of 10.

Of course, I looked enormously forward to the sequel...

It started out well enough, as a direct continuation of the first movie. However, as it went on, very little happened, and it was marred by long scenes with virtually no content. There was some action, but the movie was primarily made up of ridiculous, nonsensical angst and meaningless emoting. The movie progressed insufferably slowly, had none of the intensity and subtext of the original, and you had just about zero feeling for the characters.

This commercial misfire represents a huge blown opportunity; they could have done something cool, but did something totally bland and soulless. This is a movie that deserves a 4 rating, but I will give it a 5 because it associates to the first, the two movies together forming a franchise of a new type which will hopefully be eagerly emulated and improved by other filmmakers, whether Japanese or Western.

When ı heard miss Kuriyama has won the MTV award a few years ago ı was so happy because she has some Allah given talent. But the award was surprisingly categorised "the best fight". Honestly there are better fights in films. Yes she is an awesome fighter but her character role playing is better then her fighting. She is nearly the number one evil girl character to me.

And miss Ueto had given a stunning performance in the first film displaying a strong hearted young woman. But somehow in this film she is weaker (ı mean Azumi) fight scenes are less convincing.

Overall this is a successful Japanese film to watch with family. The best of it is "love" is given without sex scenes. That makes the audience spectrum larger.