Women of Action: Aya Ueto – Azumi
There is nothing that says that you can’t be an adorably cute pop singer AND a badass sword fighter capable of killing dozens of armed men at the same time. 2003’s Azumi was one of the more recent samurai releases that really got me back into the genre. I had watched a few different Kurosawa films as a youngster and had rented several of the 70’s era samurai flicks like Shogun’s Ninja and Renegade Ninjas at my local video store but I hadn’t seen much in my adult life. Thank goodness for Azumi. Not only was I smitten by her cute as a button look, but I found myself falling head over heels for her ability to slice men in half with a single swipe of a sword. True love….
Azumi is an incredibly simple movie. Aya Ueto plays the title character, a young woman who was an orphan raised in the mountains to be a deadly assassin. She finally “graduates” from trainee to full-blown killer and sets off on a mission to take out a trilogy of bad guy warlords. Better sharpen that sword!
Ueto teams up with a few like-minded folks as the movie progresses but the film never takes much time to slow down. There is a serious amount of action in Azumi and the finale is one that will make hardcore samurai fans curl their toes in excitement. Fans of Azumi should also check out director Ryuhei Kitamura’s other classic Versus. The man has an incredible eye for action!
