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Saw two movies the last two days that were about assassins. One is actually not a movie, but an anime series called Samurai X. The other is a Japanese film called Azumi. The anime had a slightly more developed and believable story, but it's nearly 3 hrs long total, so it certainly had more time to develop things. I would definitely recommend Samurai X (total of six episodes grouped in two: Trust, Betrayal, Reflection). Azumi has its moments of brilliance, but it also has the Japanese film corniness that may seem weird if you've never seen examples of it before. But I liked how both stories tried to explore the human part of the the cold-blooded, without even flinching, I can kill you just like that assassin. It's interesting how both assassins, in Samurai X it's Kenshin (a male), Azumi it's Azumi (a female) were orphaned and rescued by a master swordsman. Samurai is set near the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Azumi was when the Shogunate had just started and was try

I just finished watching Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence , written and directed by Mamoru Ishii. It's dazzling. It's set in a time where robots are everything man is but without a soul. Some dolls have gone beserk and begun killing their masters. They break the Laws of Robotics even further by committing suicide. It seems these robots are more than soulless pets, servants or slaves. Somehow they have been infused with souls. Each character in the movie is complicated. Not happy, but not unhappy. They live in this ambiguous existence known to many as maturity. The only innocent being, that can be joyful without restraint, is the hound. Director Ishii put it this way, he believes dolls and dogs are prime examples of how man, in an attempt to create in his own image, has brought sorrow unto himself. This makes me wonder how the word "i-dol" came to be. Did not the people of Moses fall into disgrace by idolizing false gods, whose likeness were crafted into substance