With the release of AZUMI, exaggerated swordplay action in Japan has a new master and his name is Ryuhei Kitamura. To fully appreciate this director's epic and stylized manga adaptation, one must know the genre's history.

The jidai geki (period drama) or chambara film in Japan originated as simple action tales of good versus evil and was first elevated to epic works of art spearheaded by Akira Kurosawa in 1954 with the release of SEVEN SAMURAI. By the '70s, a split took place that saw artful chambara like Kinji Fukasaku's SHOGUNS SAMURAI growing larger in budget and fewer in number, while more violent and modest actioners such as the LONE WOLF AND CUB films flourished. But by the 1990s, both styles of chambara virtually disappeared.

Now in the new millennium, writer/director Ryuhei Kitamura has emerged as the leading force in a new trend towards reviving at least one-half of the chambara genre, the populist actioner.