Blade of the Immortal is a 2017 samurai action film based on the manga series of the same name. The film was directed by the equally immortal Takashi Miike. It is his 100th film and leans heavily on his trademark extreme violence mixed with Black Comedy.
The plot concerns Manji (Takuya Kimura), an haunted ronin with a dark past who was cursed with immortality after failing to protect his sister. Over 50 years later, he is discovered by a young girl, Rin (Hana Sugisaki), who enlists his aid in getting vengeance on the clan of swordsmen who slaughtered her family.
Tropes:
- Adaptation Distillation: The film greatly condenses the manga series into a 240-minute film.
- All for Nothing: Kagehisa'a villainous ambition of uniting all of the fencing schools under his tutelage is revealed to have been doomed from the very start.
- Badass and Child Duo: Manji the immortal ronin and Rin, the spirited girl.
- Badass Normal: Kagehisa is just about as dangerous as Manji without the benefit of Healing Factor.
- Black Comedy: Amidst all of bloody violence, a number of scenes are played for comedy, such as when Manji accidentally drops a weapon out of the arsenal stuffed beneath his robes or when he grouses about having to unstick his severed forearm from a grappling hook using only his one remaining hand.
- Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Deconstructed. Kagehisa's ancestor was kicked out of his clan for using an axe, which was seen as the brutish weapon of a foreigner, but it was really just an excuse for upstaging the leader's son.
- Chekhov's Gun: An insert shot shows Manji storing one of Rin's throwing daggers in his belt. He uses it in the next scene.
- Combat Pragmatist: Kagehisa states that the Itto-ryu don't care what kind of weapon you use or how you fight, so long as you win.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: The larger the group of fighters, the wimpier the individual fighter. This even counts with Itto-ryu. When Manji has to fight a group of them (in spite of their rules about sportsmanship), they're all the rejects of the clan.
- Cool Sword: Rin's father's elaborate sword is fawned over by Magatsu.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The prologue is presented in black and white. The film becomes color once Manji becomes immortal.
- The Determinator: This is Manji's main strength. He's not quite as skilled as some of the other Itto-ryu, but he keeps fighting no matter how injured he gets.
- Dies Wide Open: Machi dies with her eyes open. Manji shuts them as he is mortally wounded.
- Establishing Character Moment: Rin is introduced practicing fencing, doing chores around the dojo, announcing that she's going to become the top student, and wolfing down her food in an unladylike fashion at dinner. The Lad-ette ahoy!
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Kagehisa volunteers to fight Rin's father one-on-one. He also forbids his minions from harming Rin, saying that "sporting" with children is vulgar.
- Subverted by Sabato Kuroi, who shields Rin from the spectacle of her mother's rape, but he's only doing it because he's also a psychopath who has lustful designs on Rin herself.
- When Rin's mother is being raped, Magatsu has a disgusted reaction and leaves the room, preferring to pilfer the slain samurai's Cool Sword.
- Eye Scream: Manji loses his right eye in his fight with the bounty hunters at the beginning of the film.
- Gorn: The amount of blood shed throughout the film could fill several swimming pools.
- Healing Factor: The bloodworms give Manji the ability to heal rapidly from wounds and never age, effectively becoming immortal.
- Hero of Another Story: After Magatsu reveals his hard upbringing and quest for revenge, Manji condescendingly tells him that he's not the only one with a sad backstory.
- Just in Time: At one point, Manji has to wait for the blood worms to reattach his hand to his arm before an approaching enemy can attack him. It reattaches just in time.
- Kick the Dog:
- Itto-ryu kill Rin's whole household in what we can assume are fair duels. However, once Kagehisa kills her father, Rin's father has died, the rest of his men them rape her mother to death, letting the audience know that these guys are not just enemies but super evil.
- Shira attempts to rape a woman serving as Kagehisa's decoy, revealing that he's evil. When Rin tries to stop him, he beats her up.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Manji is impaled several times, but he always gets better.
- The Lad-ette: Rin is raised in a fencing school and aspires to be the top student. She's chastised by her mother for not behaving like a proper lady.
- The Load: In spite of training swordsmanship her whole life, Rin is useless throughout the film and must be constantly protected by Manji.
- Master Swordsman: Manji and the entire Itto-ryu clan are superlative swordsmen.
- Mook Chivalry: On full display in the mass fight sequences at the beginning and end of the film as whole crowds mill around uselessly whenever the One-Man Army turns his back.
- My Greatest Failure: Manji is haunted by killing his sister's husband and then failing to save her life as well.
- Older Than They Look: Manji stopped aging 52 years ago.
- One-Man Army: Manji and Kagehisa are both able to singlehandedly wipe out over 50 men at one time.
- Really 700 Years Old: Eiku Shizuma is over 200 years old, while Yaobikuni is over 800.
- Rule of Three: Rin throws her throwing knives three times. On the third time, she finally hits something.
- Scars Are Forever: Really forever in this case. Manji's most grievous wounds leave scars in spite of his Healing Factor, most noticeably the scars across his face and right eye.
- Signature Style: Takashi Miike's epic bloodshed is on full display. The film is frequently compared to 13 Assassins for its lengthy, large-scale, and extremely bloody fight scenes.
- The Snack Is More Interesting: Habaki snacks on rice balls while his men get slaughtered by Manji and Kagehisa.
- The Starscream: Eiku Shizuma is a member of the Itto-ryu but wants to team up with Manji to take down Kagehisa because he realizes that he'd never be able to do it himself.
- Time Skip: After Manji becomes immortal, we cut 52 years ahead.
- Trenchcoat Warfare: Manji accumulates the weapons of his defeated opponents and stores them in his robes. There's no indication that he has so much hardware hidden under there until he whips each weapon out. This is played for comedy at one point when Manji is running, and one of Sabato Kuroi's spinning stars drops out of his sleeve while he's running, forcing him to double back and pick it up.
- The Un Fought: Manji never has to fight Shira's two companions. They simply drop out of the film.
- Unwanted Assistance: During the final big battle, Rin tosses her throwing daggers and actually manages to hit a mook or two, but she also nails Manji right in the small of the back. He tells her to stop trying to help him.
- Villain Has a Point:
- Kagehisa is motivated by the unfair xenophobia inflicted on his ancestor. No one disputes that he has a point.
- Magatsu is motivated by the classism faced by him and his childhood friend. Manji acknowledges that he's got a point, but he's not the hero of this story.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never see whether Magatsu recovered from his wounds. It's likely that he was killed along with the rest of the Itto-ryu.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?.
- Manji hates living forever and sees it as a curse, though he'd ultimately rather keep living than let Rin die.
- Eiku Shizuma is another immortal, and he laments that he's outlived everyone he loves. Ultimately he lets himself get killed by Manji.
- Would Hit a Girl: When Rin tries to stop Shira from raping a woman, he smacks her around.
- You Remind Me of X: Rin correctly guesses that she reminds Manji of his sister, which is why he cares for her.
