67
For all the great action and idiosyncratic antagonists (Erika Toda, as a brutally efficient warrior who can’t stomach violence is a particular standout) Blade of the Immortal is altogether too much.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
Takashi Miike's film is a work of robust genre craftsmanship that's informed with a sly sense of self-interrogation.
75
Philadelphia Daily News by Gary Thompson
The movie also runs 2 hours, 20 minutes, which is a lot of dead samurai. The violence is often numbing, and the translations — the movie is subtitled — are sometimes as deadly as the swordsmanship. On the other hand, Blade of the Immortal is flat-out gorgeous. Widescreen, lush, beautiful.
70
The Hollywood Reporter by Harry Windsor
Miike’s facility for the sharply sketched portrait, in between bouts of bladed mayhem, remains as shrewd as ever.
70
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Though not nearly as mindful or meaty as Mr. Miike’s 2011 triumph, 13 Assassins, “Blade” is creatively gory fun.
80
The Guardian by Jordan Hoffman
If you are going to see one outlandish and occasionally nauseating bloodbath samurai pic this year, this is the one.
70
Screen International by Lee Marshall
Miike is on fine form, never losing his sense of humour, or sense of character, even as yet another axe is embedded in yet another skull.
70
The story’s supernatural elements enable Miike to take huge liberties with chanbara, the oldest genre in Japanese cinema, and break free from rigid traditions of choreographing swordplay sequences.
80
Come for the gory swordplay, stay for the half-serious melodrama.
63
The Seattle Times by Soren Andersen
Blade of the Immortal is a pretty good title for a samurai movie. I’ve got a better one: “10,000 Corpses.”