is a 2005 Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

, starring Somegorō Ichikawa, Rie Miyazawa

Rie Miyazawa

is a Japanese actress and former model.- Life and career :Rie Miyazawa was born in Tokyo and raised by her mother. Since her debut at age 11 in an advertisement for Kit Kat, she has many films, television shows, commercials, stage appearances and photo books to her credit. She starred in the...

 and Kanako Higuchi

Kanako Higuchi

is a Japanese actress. Her credits include film, television, and radio dramas, stage, commercials, and voice roles. She married Shigesato Itoi in 1993 and has a dog named Bouillon....

. Directed by Yōjirō Takita

Yojiro Takita

Yōjirō Takita , is a Japanese filmmaker.-Career:Yōjirō Takita entered the film industry throughMukai Productions, where he served as an assistant director...

, it is a movie adaptation of a 1987 Kazuki Nakashima

Kazuki Nakashima

is a Japanese playwright and anime writer. He has written scripts for Re: Cutie Honey, Gurren Lagann and Oh! Edo Rocket. He was also responsible for the series composition of Gurren Lagann and he wrote the play that was the basis for the anime Oh! Edo Rocket...

 play

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 set in the 16th century. It has been released on DVD-Video

DVD-Video

DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder...

 as Ashura in United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 by Yume Pictures in 2006 and in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 by AnimEigo

AnimEigo

AnimEigo is an American entertainment company that licenses and distributes anime, samurai films and Japanese cinema. The company was founded in 1988 in Ithaca, New York by Robert Woodhead and Roe R. Adams, III. It is now based in Wilmington, North Carolina, and run by Natsumi Ueki, Robert's wife...

 in 2007.

Story

A beautiful oni named Bizan (Kanako Higuchi) appears on Earth. She wants to bring the demon queen Ashura back to life, so the demons can take over the world beginning in Edo

Edo

, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

, which is modern day Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

. Opposing her is the Oni Makado, an army of demon slayers, which was created by the Japanese government. Izumo (Somegorō Ichikawa) once fought with the Makado, but resigned to become a kabuki

Kabuki

is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...

 actor after he thought he accidentally killed a young girl. Izumo soon encounters Tsubaki (Rie Miyazawa), who is a member of a group of an all-female acrobatic troupe who rob the citizens of Edo during the night. Falling deeply in love, Izumo notices a red, ugly scar on Tsubaki's shoulder, which is the mark of the demon queen Ashura. Meanwhile, Jaku, one of Izumo's ex-comrades (Atsuro Watabe), falls for Bizan, leading the Oni Makado over to the dark side.

Casting

• Somegorō Ichikawa as Izumo
• Rie Miyazawa
  Rie Miyazawa
  is a Japanese actress and former model.- Life and career :Rie Miyazawa was born in Tokyo and raised by her mother. Since her debut at age 11 in an advertisement for Kit Kat, she has many films, television shows, commercials, stage appearances and photo books to her credit. She starred in the...
  
   as Tsubaki
• Kanako Higuchi
  Kanako Higuchi
  is a Japanese actress. Her credits include film, television, and radio dramas, stage, commercials, and voice roles. She married Shigesato Itoi in 1993 and has a dog named Bouillon....
  
   as Bizan
• Atsuro Watabe as Jaku Abe
• Takashi Naito as Nobuyuki Kuninari
• Erika Sawajiri
  Erika Sawajiri
  is a Japan-based actress, model, and musician. Her alias in her music career was Kaoru Amane, but she has recently started her own project under the name Erika...
  
   as Yachi
• Fumiyo Kohinata as Nanboku Tsuruya IV
• Yukijiro Hotaru
  Yukijirō Hotaru
  -Filmography:*Sexy Battle Girls *Time Adventure: Zeccho 5-byo Mae *Itoshino Half Moon *Subway Serial Rape: Lover Hunting *Zeiram *Aiyoku Shūdōin: Jukujo, Chijo, Seijo...
  
   as Magotaro

Music

The music for the movie was composed and scored by Yoko Kanno

Yoko Kanno

is a composer, arranger and musician best known for her work on the soundtracks for many games, anime films, TV series, live-action movies, and advertisements...

. The theme song for the English-dubbed version is "My Funny Valentine

My Funny Valentine

"My Funny Valentine" is a show tune from the 1937 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical Babes in Arms in which it was introduced by former child star Mitzi Green...

", which is performed by Sting and features piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 playing by Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

.

DVD extras

The two-disc set contains special features on the second disc. The two featurette

Featurette

Featurette is a term used in the American film industry to designate a film whose length is approximately three quarters of a reel, or about 20–44 minutes in running time - thus midway between a short subject and a feature film; thus it is a "small feature"...

s are included: "The Making of Ashura" and "The Visual Effects of Ashura." The first featurette, running 25 minutes long, is a production documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the cast and crew. The special features documentary is 15 minutes long. Also included are a photo gallery, which is viewed without a remote, trailers for other releases from the same distributor and production notes for Ashura.