An epic of big bloody action
“Blade of the Immortal” is the 100th f ilm by Takashi Miike, a Japanese director who for 25 years has tried his hand at gangster pictures, westerns, horror, comedy, superhero sagas, animation and just about any other genre imaginable … in modes that range from grubby low- budget sleaze to rousing crowd- pleasers to abstract art.
Adapting a beloved Hiroaki Samura manga series, Miike has more money to work with than usual. He used it to make a sword-and- samurai epic that spans decades, with elaborate sets and enough extras and stunt performers to stage several long, corpselittered battles.
“Blade of the Immortal” begins with a doozy of a fight scene — shot in black- and- white — which ends with the warrior hero, Manji ( played by Takuya Kimura) getting cursed with immortality. As his severed hand knits back onto the bloody stump of his wrist, the title f ills the screen, accompanied by a splash of red.
Fifty years later — as the f ilm shifts to color — Manji meets Rin ( Hana Sugisaki), an adolescent who recruits him to avenge her parents. Desperate to give his endless life meaning, the swordsman agrees. Much slashing and lopping ensues.
Miike has covered this territory before, in his cult f ilms “13 Assassins” and “Hara- Kiri.” “Blade of the Immortal” is larger in scale; and perhaps because of that it’s a little less funky and a little more repetitive, as the heroes roam from one similar skirmish to another.
But Miike retains his twisted sense of humor, with mangling and disemboweling deployed for comic effect. And after 99 movies, he certainly knows how to make action memorable. When 300 brightly clad actors with sharp props come storming in for the story’s climax, all a martial arts fan can do is sit back and salivate. — Noel Murray
“Blade of the Immortal.” Rated R, for bloody violence and carnage throughout. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes. Playing: Laemmle NoHo 7, North Hollywood; Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena.
Lena Olin digs into her role
The best thing about “Maya Dardel,” a prickly character study posing as a provocation, is the chance to see Lena Olin dig into the title role. A formidable intellectual who, for amusement, chews up and spits out perceived lightweights, Maya growls and taunts, disdains and dismisses, and Olin could not be more commanding. It’s a powerful performance in the service of a movie that’s by turns offputting, bracingly incisive and insufferable.
The action unfolds entirely in and around Maya’s upscale- boho house in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a rarefied realm above Silicon Valley. There, in her impatient rasp, the writer announces live on NPR that she plans to kill herself.
But this is no pity- fest; legacy in mind, she sees no point in producing work of dwindling quality. With no family to bequeath her estate to, she sends out a casting call of sorts. Wanted: an up- and- coming poet to serve as her heir and literary executor. Only males need apply. (“I don’t like women’s writing,” she says.) She doesn’t mention the casting couch, a key element of the interview process.
The contest narrows to two deeply uninteresting, schematically opposed contenders. One ( Nathan Keyes) is all quivering delicacy, the other ( Alexander Koch) jumping with assaultive swagger.
Luckily there’s Rosanna Arquette as Maya’s eccentric neighbor. The scenes between her gun- crazy New Ager and Olin’s elegant antihero require none of the overstatement that otherwise prevails. Setting out to skewer literary pretentiousness, writer- directors Zachary Cotler and Magdalena Zyzak too often subject us to the cinematic equivalent. — Sheri L i nden
“Maya Dardel.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes. Playing: Laemmle’s Monica Film Center, Santa Monica.
Returning- vet drama plods
Writer- director Douglas Mueller’s tedious drama “Repatriation” seems unsure of what it wants to say or how to say it — much less how to effectively shoot or edit it.
Chad Tyler ( Ryan Barton- Grimley), following a vague stint in the military, returns to his small Midwestern hometown and right off the bus sets out on a nightlong pub crawl.
Bar by bar, Chad reconnects with a jumble of old friends and acquaintances, knocking back a series of drinks he’s bought as a thank- you for his “service.” En route, Chad pairs off with the shy Camille ( Jes Mercer) who, back in the day, worshipped the former jock from afar.
However, as the evening wears on, and Chad becomes drunker, tenser and ruder, it appears he may not be such a “hero” after all. In fact, we learn he’s actually a disreputable jerk who serially cheated on his high school girlfriend. People hate him! So why did everyone at the start seem to love him?
That’s just one of many things that make little sense in this unconvincing journey, one that’s filled with banal, often repetitive chatter, clunky exposition and spotty acting.
But it’s the f ilm’s lulu of an ending that, for many viewers, may prove most exasperating. — Gary Goldstein
“Repatriation.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 12 minutes. Playing: Arena Cinelounge Sunset, Hollywood; also on VOD.