Cursed with immortality, Manji, a highly skilled samurai in feudal Japan promises to help a young woman, Rin, avenge the death of her parents. Their mission leads them into a bloody battle with a ruthless warrior, Anotsu Kagehisa and his band of master swordsmen.
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Blade of the Immortal (movie): gory, stylish but ultimately soul-deadening?
- Thread starter Amko
- Start date
I haven't seen the movie, but the original post reminded me that I've often thought that the "immortality as a curse" idea is overdone in the fantasy genre.
Funny how many of the characters who consider their immortality to be a curse fight tooth and nail to stay alive. Maybe the "curse" idea is promoted so that ordinary (uncursed) mortals won't become too envious and decide to put the immortality to the test. "Hmm, stabbing didn't work, let's try drowning. Nope, maybe the machine gun. Shucks, still alive. How about freezing? Or burning? So many things to try, and we can do it all with a single test subject."
Understandably, if you have to be a vampire to be immortal, and if that requires killing innocent people, drinking their blood, and sleeping it off in a shallow grave, that might be regarded as a curse. Especially if you're also cursed with feelings of guilt. But there are many other immortals in the literature (and videos) who have none of those downsides. Most of those immortals don't die of natural causes or injuries, but can be killed, whether by decapitation or nuclear weapons, all of which they avoid like the plague (which, ironically, can't kill them).
Also understandably, after several hundred (or thousand) years a person might just get sick and tired of life. But there's a fairly simple solution to that, especially in the Japanese samurai culture where seppuku is considered an honorable means of exit. Or the hero/heroine can pick a fight against impossible odds, or volunteer to be the first human to set foot on the sun.
On the other hand, true immortality -- which means that the person cannot be killed at all, by any means -- would eventually be a curse. Who wants to be the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust and its aftermath that wipes out the entire human race except one? Remember the song, "One is the loneliest number..."? Who wants to be incinerated but not killed, taking perhaps a hundred years to regenerate while in excruciating pain for every minute of those hundred years? Who wants to be the sole survivor floating aimlessly in empty space after the sun has cooled and the universe is expanding so fast that not even a single star is visible in the (nonexistent) sky because the light from the stars can no longer reach us -- and by "us" I mean you, the sole survivor, all alone with nowhere to go and nothing to do.
Now that immortality would be a curse. I'd like to see someone make that into a movie. I suspect it would be a lot harder to watch than seeing someone hack off limbs with a sword.
Funny how many of the characters who consider their immortality to be a curse fight tooth and nail to stay alive. Maybe the "curse" idea is promoted so that ordinary (uncursed) mortals won't become too envious and decide to put the immortality to the test. "Hmm, stabbing didn't work, let's try drowning. Nope, maybe the machine gun. Shucks, still alive. How about freezing? Or burning? So many things to try, and we can do it all with a single test subject."
Understandably, if you have to be a vampire to be immortal, and if that requires killing innocent people, drinking their blood, and sleeping it off in a shallow grave, that might be regarded as a curse. Especially if you're also cursed with feelings of guilt. But there are many other immortals in the literature (and videos) who have none of those downsides. Most of those immortals don't die of natural causes or injuries, but can be killed, whether by decapitation or nuclear weapons, all of which they avoid like the plague (which, ironically, can't kill them).
Also understandably, after several hundred (or thousand) years a person might just get sick and tired of life. But there's a fairly simple solution to that, especially in the Japanese samurai culture where seppuku is considered an honorable means of exit. Or the hero/heroine can pick a fight against impossible odds, or volunteer to be the first human to set foot on the sun.
On the other hand, true immortality -- which means that the person cannot be killed at all, by any means -- would eventually be a curse. Who wants to be the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust and its aftermath that wipes out the entire human race except one? Remember the song, "One is the loneliest number..."? Who wants to be incinerated but not killed, taking perhaps a hundred years to regenerate while in excruciating pain for every minute of those hundred years? Who wants to be the sole survivor floating aimlessly in empty space after the sun has cooled and the universe is expanding so fast that not even a single star is visible in the (nonexistent) sky because the light from the stars can no longer reach us -- and by "us" I mean you, the sole survivor, all alone with nowhere to go and nothing to do.
Now that immortality would be a curse. I'd like to see someone make that into a movie. I suspect it would be a lot harder to watch than seeing someone hack off limbs with a sword.