Review of Azumi (Part 2)

Cast
Ueto Aya, Oguri Shun, Ishigaki Yuma, Kuriyama Chiaki, Kitamura Kazuki, Takashima Reiko

Story
The story continues from the last movie where Azumi (Ueto) and her sole-surviving friend, Nagara (Ishigaki) killed Kato Kiyomasa after a bloody battle. The sequel begins with the two being pursued by Kiyomasa's servant, Inoue (Kitamura) to take revenge for his master.

As Nagara is injured, Azumi goes to town to buy food and meets Gingaku (Oguri) who is the spitting image of her friend, Nachi whom she killed. Gingaku seems to have taken a liking to Azumi while she is quite confused about seeing Gingaku and remembers what happened between her and Nachi in the past.

Azumi and Nagara then meets Kozue(Kuriyama Chiaki), a ninja who brings them to meet Tenkai, one of the leaders in the Tokunaga clan. They then proceed to kill the last remaining member of the rival clan, Sanada Masayuki who is protected by a professional killing group, Ueno Koga headed by his mistress, Kunyo (Takashima Reiko). Gingaku also brings his group to help Azumi.

Kozue convinces Nagara to go his separate ways from Azumi so that she can be with Gingaku. However, Nagara fails to realise that Kozue is from Ueno Koga and gets killed by her. Kozue then looks for Azumi and the gang and claims that Nagara was separated from her when they were chased by the enemy. Kozue tries to kill Tenkai and is killed by Azumi instead when she finds out that Nagara was killed by Kozue.

Azumi tells everyone to back off while she goes off to kill Sanada Masayuki. However, she is tricked and falls victim to a sedating drug. Just as Kunyo tries to kill Azumi, Gingaku comes to her rescue and ends up being killed. When Azumi wakes up, she is very upset and goes off to finish her final mission...

Review
Well...I think the production quality is slightly more refined than the original and the gore level is somewhat toned down. However, there are still scenes where blood splashes all over the place e.g. when Azumi kills Tsuchigumo in the bamboo forest, he's torn into pieces and the blood splashes around. I really wonder if the human body can be slashed in such a manner that blood flows in such a manner.

And the fashion in this movie...Takashima Reiko with that armour simply makes me giggle. Azumi still looks good (her hair visibly dyed in black as compared to the first where Ueto's hair was tinted) and Kuriyama Chiaki looks nice in her costume. Too bad she was killed by the middle of the movie.

Another thing I'll like to bring up again is that everyone gets killed and Azumi is left alone again. And the way the ending is presented, it seems to offer some space for a third movie to be made i.e. what happens to Azumi after she completes her mission. Well, Oguri Shun is killed for the second time . I can't help but wonder why he is so "ill-fated" in this movie...

Overall, although I thought that the first movie was quite gory, it had a stronger plot as compared to the second which focuses too much on the killing. Thus, I enjoyed the original movie than the sequel even though it was 30 minutes longer. And if they do make a third movie, maybe they can improve more on the story rather than get Azumi to be a killing machine.