Thanks to DarkLoud for sending this in from the 2005 FanTasia Film Festival in Canada!

Demons, Demons Slayers, Zombies, Ninjas, Spirits, Green Blood...

Tonight’s first fantasia’s pick was Ashura, a Japanese movie directed by Yojira Takita. The movie is about a love story between two demons. Izumo is slaying demons for a while now, he suddenly sees a very young girl that begs him to kill her. After killing her, slashing demons isn’t the same anymore. Five years later the young girl (Tsubaki) is back but in an older body and falls in love with Izumo that has become, believe it or not an actor that didn’t let anybody know about his skills just because they didn’t ask him. Then Bizan (the demons leader) appears to announce the resurrection of Ashura, the queen of demons that is supposed to end all life throughout the universe. The love between Izumo and Tsubaki will eventually awake Ashura and put every single human life in danger.

The film opens up on a fight between demons and demons slayers. Izumo is slaying a lot of demons that are terrorizing the villagers. The demons are disguised as humans with some *green* fx added on the eyes and mouth to make them look like demons when they are discovered. The demons look at first isn’t really nice and the use of graphic blood pretty much reminded me of Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi, but in a weaker way.

Izumo has some great “real” green blood on him that makes his crazy “intense” facial emotions look even crazier. Some camera tricks in the last fight reminded me of Ryuhei Kitamura’s style, especially in Azumi. And some background and story bits reminded me of Kitamura’s Sky high. The fight scenes didn’t feel intense and were cut so often that it wasn’t easy to get into the fights. The swordfights felt rushed and the transitions from real demons to CGI demons in the last slashing scenes did not help the style of the film.

The theater aspect of the film (yes it is indeed inspired directly by a 2000’s stage play) was not unpleasant. It did deliver something positive to the film but because they added this screenplay writer character in the film, it made this stage connection too obvious and did not contribute well. What is good about this is that the actors are coming in the scenes and leaving just like a stage play but instead of actors, we have demons, ninjas and company.

The actors did deliver good performances but the visuals were not rich. The music did not integrate well with the scenes. The dialogue was rich but too present in the film: the fight scenes were flooded with dialogues. This made the fight scenes feel too long and more or less serious. The film deserves attention but does not quench your thirst for action & blood.