I had been looking forward to this since I heard about it, even though it wasn’t directed by Kitamura Ryuhei who I am a fan of. Now I didn’t love Azumi, but I did really enjoy it, and if you liked the first one you will probably like this one too. Sure it isn’t shot nearly as well, and the visuals are not nearly as good, but it is still staring Aya Ueto as Azumi with very comic book villains. Now Ueto doesn’t seem strong enough or fast enough to be as bad ass as she is supposed to be, but I can suspend my disbelief and watch this very fun samurai film. Maybe I am just a sucker for Samurai movies, as I do own the entire Zatoichi series. I don’t know, but I liked it.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….

As I said Ueto Aya returns as the titular Azumi, with the last of her surviving comrades in arms Nagara (Ishigaki Yuma) still out to kill the big boss, and stop a war, but the big boss has a ninja clan on it’s side, and the original right hand of the boss they already killed has hired armored ninja to attack Azumi and her friend. They end up running into a group of Robin Hood like men who fight and steal, but to take car of war orphans. They are let by Ginkaku (Oguri Shun) who is a spitting image of Azumi’s old friend who she loved and killed in the first film, who she instantly likes, but tries to stay away from because she is an assassin. Azumi and Nagara run into allies, and take a guide with them to find the big boss, the guide is young and excited ninja Kozue (Chiaki Kuriyama) who quickly has Nagara stumbling over himself for her, and agrees to leave Azumi to be with Ginkaku so that he and Kozue can kill the boss, but she quickly kills him because she is one of the evil ninja, but Azumi kills her. Azumi then hunts down the ninja clan, and is poisoned but with Ginkaku’s help kills the mistress, though he is killed. And finally she confronts the big boss, who has lost his backing, and murders him, ending it all.

As I said I liked it, even though it is not nearly as well done as the first film, and I instantly knew that Chiaki Kuriyama was evil, but then it is a Manga, so it isn’t too hard to guess what will happen. A fun film all around.