Ouch....

Sore back. I think I got injured while taking the music sphere down the shelf yesterday.

And so begins a 4 day rest period from today. Don't have much programmes but since today is MC, I just sits around my ass sore trying to find something to do.Nothing basically interests me these days.
Forum?Boring.
PS2?Boring.
DVD and VCDS?Boring?
PC D/L?I try to sit through Lethal Weapons of Love & Passion but the spoilt episodes are super turn off. Apparently I am at the storyline of ep35 of 40 but basically I only watched till ep 25. Return of Condor Heroes '06 is still slow. I waiting for episode 1 because the version I watched was choppy.Darn.

Oh. ya.

Whenever I am emotionally down there's this thing called Idol Therapy.
So I dug out something among yuki's bag of prize collection and helped myself to....

Azumi 2 : Death or Love
The 1st Azumi was great. Not entirely a classic samurai movie but it is a product of the modern styled samurai genre, a term that is what I precieved as bubblegum samurai movies. Sword clashing pieces string by a series of events. Plot???Nay.

Anyway this manga based sequel (should I classified this as a Animanga movie then?) fails to live up. There isn't enough style that make it so explosive and WOW in the original Azumi movie that is helmed by Ryuhei Kitamura (yes the one who made the INsane Godzilla Final Wars). Azumi 2 is by another director. He made Gamera and Godzilla movies. He ought to stick to that.
Azumi 2 is slow. The fight sequences lack of dynamics and quickness.
In the movie, Nagara (Azumi's sole surviving assasin partner) say something like this

"The arrow isn't that quick from here."

Same goes for the movie. Someone ought to have bring this to Shusuke Kaneko the director of Azumi 2. The movie fails to delievers the shots. In fact the fighting pieces just resembles the previous movie. I guess making Godzilla movies makes you think you can just repackage action sequences and resell it as a sequel.

Storyline wise, I get that the scriptwriter wants to pack the best of the manga into the movie. Kouga Ninjas!Sanada Masayuki!Kanbei(gun toting samurai villain from the 1st movie)!Doppledangler of past love!When you got too much stuff on hand, the flavours just won't mix. The ninjas are pretty good but they over emphasis on certain traits of the ninjas making it LOL OLD School HK Action. You like the whining monkey ninja guy in the previous Azumi?Meet his cousin of equivalence, the koala spider ninjaman. LOL. But he was too serious. Hmmmm...ya. There's no humour in Azumi 2 unlike Azumi.

Gals wise, look out for Aya Ueto and Chiaki Kuriyama. In fact Chiaki Kuriyama looks more like the Azumi in the manga so it kind of being irony she gets to almost uproot Aya Ueto in every scene with her. Of course Aya gets to chop her up in the end. So call it vengence.

Azumi 2 is a great time passer. Do not place expectation on it and you will be safe.
Like at the costumes and the scenary and Aya Ueto and you be safe. Haha.