Blade of the Immortal

Blade of the Immortal follows Manji, a swordsman of great skill who is left unable to die. He is weighed down by guilt over his sister, whose murder he failed to prevent, and he comes to believe that only by fighting evil can he recover what he has lost. His path crosses with Rin Asano, a young woman whose parents were killed by a group of swordsmen. She asks him to help her take revenge on those responsible, among them the ruthless Anotsu Kagehisa, and he agrees to serve as her protector. The task pulls Manji into a long campaign against trained killers and forces changes on him that he did not expect.

Takashi Miike directed the film, working from a screenplay by Tetsuya Oishi. It is the thirtieth of the forty-two features he has directed in chronological order, coming after Terra Formars and before JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable – Chapter 1. Takuya Kimura plays Manji, with Hana Sugisaki in the dual role of Machi and Rin Asano. Sota Fukushi appears as Anotsu Kagehisa, and the cast also includes Hayato Ichihara, Erika Toda and Kazuki Kitamura.

The film runs 140 minutes and was released in 2017, produced through a collaboration involving Japanese, Korean and British companies. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.7 from more than 19,000 votes, and on TMDB it also stands at 6.7, from a much smaller tally of 659 votes. A critics' rating of 7 out of 10 from 97 reviews places it slightly above both audience scores.