In the new animated series Blue Eye Samurai, revenge has never looked better.
Set in 17th-century Edo-period Japan, Mizu (voiced by Maya Erskine) is a master of the sword who’s spent her life in hiding. Because she’s half white, she’s seen as an outcast due to Japan’s closed border policy. Now, Mizu is ready to get her revenge and hunt down the only four white men in the country at the time of her birth, one of whom must be her father. In order to do so, she must disguise herself as a man. What unfolds on-screen is a bloody saga filled with captivating martial arts sequences and sword fights.
Enter stunt choreographer Sunny Sun, who’s also been practicing kung fu since he was 10. “When I choreograph, I focus on the storytelling [and] on the character [development],” he says.
Because Mizu goes undercover as a man, Sun focused on her specific movement patterns. “Her fighting style, we kind of designed like a boy and that also makes sense from her past, because we didn’t want her to move much,” he says. Supervising director Jane Wu adds, “It’s an Eastern Western — her personality, her characteristics, how she should move. Just imagine this is Clint Eastwood in every single shot — that’s who Mizu needs to be.”
The Blue Eye Samurai team prepared the action scenes as if they were filming a live-action show. Sun would take a few days to choreograph each sequence, film stunt performers fighting, and cut the footage into the storyboard. The animators would then look at the storyboard and see how each part was connected.
Blue Eye Samurai’s action scenes also pay homage to video games. In Episode 6, Mizu infiltrates Abijah Fowler’s (Kenneth Branagh) Island Castle, a sadistic fun house, and must navigate her way through a hallucinatory maze. Viewers move along with Mizu as she sprints through tunnel walls closing in on her and dodges sharp blades piercing at her; it almost feels like a video game, like you’re right in the world with her.
Blue Eye Samurai is now streaming on Netflix.
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