war-torn Japan, the Tokugawa Shogun, desperate to restore peace to his people, orders the assassination of the hostile warlords. A beautiful young woman is raised from birth with nine other orphans, to become an assassin. Her name is AZUMI, the ultimate assassin.

Azumi begins the film as the only girl among 10 warriors who have been trained from childhood by Jiji, a gray-bearded samurai. One day, Jiji tells them they must pass a final test before they embark on the mission they have prepared for all these years. He pairs them up, and, only five survive, including Azumi. Led by Jiji, this small band descends from the mountain that is the only world they know. Their mission, we learn, is to stop a nefarious plot to unseat the current shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, by the supporters of Hideyori, the son of deceased warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. In other words, they are out to prevent a civil war of the kind that devastated their own families before Ieyasy wrested power from his rivals at the battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and imposed peace...