Azumi 2
(2005/Asiavision/UrbanVision DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: C
After so
many good Samurai films being released on DVD of late looking good, old and
new, the disappointments are even harder to sit through. That is exactly the case with Shusuke
Kaneko’s Azumi 2 (2005) a
by-the-numbers effort about Feudal Japan that plays like formula, has some of
the lamer fights we have seen of late and is quickly forgotten.
We never
saw the first film, which might be for the better if it is anything like this
and no, none of this is so significant that you need to see the original. If the attempt is to turn this into a
franchise, the producers are fighting a losing battle. The prominence of female characters is as
fake as an episode of Xena and even
the supposedly super-skills of the tile character never works. At least it has the guts to be graphic and
not too pretentious about it and we have seen worse, but even diehard fans will
likely find this lame.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is so soft, you’d think you were
watching a bad TV movie, with inconsistent color, poor depth and lame
detail. The Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0
options, English & Japanese (four in all) are flat and any idea of a
soundfield in the 5.1 mixes are never realized.
English dubbing is especially poor.
Extras include stills, a bunch of trailers for other AsiaVision releases
and a featurette Through The Eyes Of
Azumi.
- Nicholas Sheffo
