Kamui - The Lone Ninja Blu-ray

Previous reviews temporarily put me off buying this film, but when I did it was nothing like as bad as expected! Probably if I'd expected it to be brilliant I would have been disappointed. If you are expecting a bona fide ninja film or top class action sequences then you will be disappointed. The film is best in the non action areas and the story is good and well acted. It is an effective drama with plenty of emotion and a little pathos. It is nowhere near as bad as some of the reviews make it out to be and I can recommend it.

Kamui is one of those very rare films where..... you switch it off out of complete boredom and annoyance!!! Oh yes the film is so dire that I didn't even want to waste a further hour of my life so I switched it off halfway through!!!
Being a MASSIVE martial arts fan and particularly of those from Japan AND also a Kenichi Matsuyama fangirl I had high expectations for Kmaui. There I was expecting something between Death Note and Azumi but in the first 5 minutes I knew I wasn't going to be getting that at all. Firstly all the fights scenes I managed to watch were truely terrible because they were simply CGI generations without any skill being involved. Too many wires and dodgy graphics were used to make up for the fact that none of the actors knew the first thing about screen fighting. Frankly it was painful to watch! Then there were many unecessary uses of CGI... running deer in the woods, birds, back flips... all things that would have been better shot in live action and probably a whole lot easier and cheaper too!!!
But the main down point (as if the shoddy fake fights weren't bad enough) was the truely hateful narrative. This lone Ninja gets into a couple of scapes, gets washed up on some island and saves a bloke called Hanbi who was sentenced to death for cutting off some lord's horse's leg. Personaliy I would have been happy to see Hanbi get a good beheading for that so Kamui saving him seemed really pointless as you ahve no real sympathy for the charcater's imminent death. Then as they escape by sea they are attacked by sharks (yes attacked by awful CGI sharks) and THEN saved by pirates... ooohhhh yesss sharks and pirates in a martial arts film! The excitement was just too much for me at this point *uses sarcastic tone* and I decided to eject the disc and put in Kitamura's Verses instead... now that's entertainment!!!!!
How one reviewer claimed this was a wonderful ninja film I will never know... if you like trashy rubbish or are a hard core Kenichi Matsuyama fan go ahead and watch it. If you actually want to do something more wortwhile with your time go and watch paint dry cause it would sure beat watching this rubbish!!!

I agree totally with Tabula Rosas review. The front of the Dvd says " probably best Nibja film ever". A ninja film with hardly any fighting !Boring throughout and never gripped for a moment. Worst Ninja film is better title.