With my admiration and fascination with the Asian cinema, of course I opted to sit down and watch the 2018 movie "Red Blade", as I happened to stumble upon it by random luck here in 2023. I had actually never heard about the movie, so I didn't know what I was in for, and thus had no expectations to the movie either.

The storyline in "Red Blade", as written by Toshiki Kimura and Sion Sono, was pretty straight forward. Nothing grand or overly spectacular. But at least it made for an adequate enough viewing experience, however you're not really left wishing for more. And that makes "Red Blade" a movie that you will watch only once, then bag and tag it, never to bring it out for a second viewing.

The acting performances in "Red Blade" were as you would expect from a movie of this caliber. Sure, you're not in for an evening of Shakespearian theater here, that's for sure. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but they had an adequate cast ensemble here. The performances were fair enough.

And wait until you see the amazingly awkward and stiff kissing scene between Mako and the girl that bullies her, it was absolutely toe-curling and cringeworthy. I have never seen a more awkward kiss on the screen before.

There is a permeating amateurish and home-made-video feel to the entire movie, and that definitely takes away from the overall enjoyment that there would otherwise have been to the movie. But I have seen far worse and more amateurish attempts at movie making than what director Takahiro Ishihara did here with "Red Blade".

There are far better sword-fighting fantasy movies on the Asian market, and "Red Blade" failed to make a splash, much less stand out from numerous other movies.

My rating of director Takahiro Ishihara's 2018 movie lands on a bland four out of ten stars.