Binge-worthy: Blue Eye Samurai slays with stunning visuals and martial arts action

Blue Eye Samurai (R21)

Netflix
4 stars

“Kill Bill meets Yentl”. That is American co-creator Amber Noizumi’s tongue-in-cheek description of this animation series aimed at adult viewers.

While Blue Eye Samurai combines the martial arts revenge story of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill two-parter (2003 and 2004) with the woman-passing-as-man plot of the musical drama Yentl (1983), the spectre of Disney’s animated period fantasy Mulan (1998) also looms large.

So, a better descriptive phrase might be: “Mulan, if the story had less singing and more slashing, fewer ballads and more beheadings.”

The setting is Edo-period Japan, an age of isolationism, when xenophobia towards the non-Japanese ran at fever pitch. Mizu (voiced by Maya Erskine) is born the bastard child of a rogue white trader and a Japanese woman.

The blind sword-maker Seki (George Takei) takes the outcast in. She hides her blue eyes – demon eyes, according to the locals – behind amber sunglasses and disguises herself as a boy. She learns the way of the blade and sets out to exact revenge on her father, the Westerner who helped birth the loathsome mixed-race creature that she is.

Netflix has confirmed that there will be a second season. Here are the reasons to catch up on all eight episodes of the first.

1. Cinematic scope

The American husband-and-wife creative team of Noizumi and Michael Green – she has white and Japanese parents, he is Jewish – enlisted the help of French animation studio Blue Spirit (the Oscar-nominated stop-motion work My Life As A Zucchini, 2016) to make the frames pop.

The fight scene between Mizu and assassin Chiaki (martial arts veteran Mark Dacascos) is set on the seashore against a blazing orange sunset, with waves crashing around them. The visual sumptuousness of the staging could have come from legendary film-maker Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985).

2. Rich world-building

As Mizu travels to meet her destiny, she finds mountains, forests, villages and castles, each vista reflecting her mood and the level of danger in which she finds herself.

The backdrops are evocative and beautiful. Blue Spirit’s computer-generated images have the warmth of old-school hand-drawn animation, but with the smooth motion of digital art.

The key ideas of the story are historically accurate. Japan from 1633 did close itself off to foreigners and that period was marked by strict feudal divisions that allowed noble families and loyal samurai warriors to do as they pleased with those from the lower classes.

Scenes are set against Japanese festivals – it is hard to tell if the religious celebrations are based on fact, but they feel real. For example, villagers are seen jumping into the sea naked to experience a spiritual rebirth. The details the animators invest in the scene give it depth and authenticity.

The show takes liberties with guns, though. Mizu tracks her prey by tracing the source of rare and sought-after Western guns. In reality, local craftsmen were already familiar with technology, but that one lie is allowable. With guns in the mix, the show’s glorious katana showdowns would be absent.

And, in a rare move for a fantasy, sorcery does not exist in the world of Blue Eye Samurai. Too often, magic is used as a storytelling crutch, a convenience that lets heroes dodge fatal consequences. Mizu has no supernatural resources. As a mixed-race woman, she has to use her wits to survive in a world set against people like her.

3. Big emotions

The story is simple – an outcast picks up sword skills at home, goes on the road and lays waste to the men who underestimate her.

Director Jane Wu has spoken of her love of Hong Kong action in general and martial artist Bruce Lee in particular. It shows in the grand emotionalism of the characters.

There is tragedy and suffering, glory and triumph – no feeling is small here.

In the first reveal of her skills, Mizu calmly faces down an entire dojo of fighters. It is a nod to a similar scene in Lee’s Fist Of Fury (1972), but there is a bracing intensity and intimacy to the violence here that is pure 2023.

All of it would be pointless if it were presented artlessly and, here, Wu’s background in Marvel superhero films is evident. She had worked mostly in drawing storyboards and planning fight scenes in films such as The Avengers (2012) before jumping ship to helm the series.

Mizu’s blade battles, and the outsized displays of anguish and suffering, are bedded in gorgeous aesthetics. An opera without the beautiful arias would be just a bunch of actors moaning and crying.