This movie is difficult to understand. If Miike was not directing this would probably fall into the line of gorgeously shot, well acted films that suffer from a truly banal and stupid script. As others have pointed out, the protagonist is a useless girl to the extreme who is so mindless and annoying that you practically don't care what has happened to her family. The great warrior is something of both great warrior at times and others a careless, not so great warrior. And it's as if there are just a host of characters they meet along the way to vengeance which suddenly sprout motives which are completely contradictory to the wafer thin personas they have been given.
It's painful because the film has all the elements of potentially being great but instead opts for silly. There are occasional moments of excellent humor but there aren't enough of them, especially for a 2.5 hour running time where it feels like setup after setup after setup. And at times, there isn't even a natural build from one scene to the next, just characters appearing to be in a situation. It feels like lazy film making or poor editing or someone just thinking that this resembled or was a bit of a caricature of some older films to constitute parody. Whatever the case, it's far too long and without a need for all the bit players. But there should be no question that the film is gorgeous to look at - and if you really like gore, Miike doesn't spare it.
It's painful because the film has all the elements of potentially being great but instead opts for silly. There are occasional moments of excellent humor but there aren't enough of them, especially for a 2.5 hour running time where it feels like setup after setup after setup. And at times, there isn't even a natural build from one scene to the next, just characters appearing to be in a situation. It feels like lazy film making or poor editing or someone just thinking that this resembled or was a bit of a caricature of some older films to constitute parody. Whatever the case, it's far too long and without a need for all the bit players. But there should be no question that the film is gorgeous to look at - and if you really like gore, Miike doesn't spare it.