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Samurai Fiction Actors: Morio Kazama, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Tomoyasu Hotei Director: Hiroyuki Nakano Number of Items: 1 Format: Color Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 111 minutes Studio: Media Blasters, Inc Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2003-09-30 Buy from Amazon |
 "Fantastic!"Yeah! :D A great and complex story that doesn't take itself too seriously. For me, the humor executed in this movie is the perfect style of comedy, simply perfect. I'm never one to reveal anything about storylines but, you gotta love the old ninja! And for those of you who WILL watch it...keep "3 Stooges" in mind. What a fun ride. AND, if you like this movie, go buy Red Shadow. "Traditional Samurai film fans, hear this..."I am a huge fan of the early pioneering Samurai films, and of Kurosawa pictures. Now, that being stated, I must point out the evolutionary weights and measures, so to speak, upon which this film stands to reason. Certain persons have pointed out that this is not traditional and feel cheated by the "light-hearted" aspects therein. On the contrary, this film maintains a certain subtle tonality that is not easily recognized as depthy or textured. It remains epic in nature, yet steps outside the genre to throw a nod back to traditional pioneer filmakers and to break a little ground, as the very definition of pioneer is as thus. Plus, it rocks, literally. That being said, one should enjoy this movie, not sit there wishing it was done by Akira himself. And, I'm pretty sure if the man were still kicking, he would commend this effort of bringing a newfound faith into the cinema of today. Buy this film, fans and non-fans alike should enjoy it.  "HOTEI-SAN RULES, OK"I saw this DVD in the shelves several months ago and was intrigued. Later I saw both installments of the "Kill Bill" saga and was particularly taken with a jam from the first volume's soundtrack called "Battle Without Honor Or Humanity" (which can now be heard in Jaguar ads, by the way). Eventually I had heard that not only were some of Tarantino's scenes from "Kill Bill Vol. 1" taken directly from "Samurai Fiction", but the composer of "Battle Without Honor..." also scored the film and had a major starring role in it. I decided I had to give it a look. And it was worth it. The movie is a different take on Akira Kurosawa's old skool samurai epics from the '50's and '60's. In some ways it's a bit of a send-up, but this is no lampoon in the vein of "Airplane" nor is it a knock-off/homage similar to...well, pretty much every movie Quentin Tarantino has ever made. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but the plot twist that brings the movie to its conclusion is hardly that of traditional martial arts movies (there seems to be more of "kinder and gentler" school of martial arts flicks being produced today...Jet Li's "Hero" is not dissimilar to "Samurai Fiction" in this regard). There are enough old-skool elements that tie this film to its predecessors, but the film is marketed as "an MTV generation samuari movie", and I don't really see the connection (other than having prominent Japanese musicians playing roles and the score being more contemporarily pop-oriented rather than Japanese classical music), but the attitute is decidedly lighter. This is a good thing; Jackie Chan has longsince proved that comedy has a place in an otherwise serious action movie, and the humor in "Samurai Fiction" is nowhere nearly as obvious or Chaplin-esque as in Chan's work. For me the real revelation was Tomoyasu Hotei, Japan's pop/rock superstar guitarist. He plays a master swordsman (Kazamatsuri) without alliance or direction who sets the events of the movie in motion by stealing a ceremonial samurai sword from the clan who enlisted him to be its guardian. No reason is ever given for his doing this; his motive seems to be simply "because I can". He is not a typical martial arts antagonist; there are aspects of his character that make him seem to be far more honorable (and at times even more likeable) than Heishiro, the film's protagonist sworn to kill Kazamatsuri and return the sword to his clan. Complicating matters is the baggage taken on by Heishiro in the form of his two childhood friends and a pair of quasi-competent ninja sent by Heishiro's father to keep an eye on him. But I found Heishiro, though obviously intended to be cast as the "hero", to be rather an annoying personality. Chihuahua-like in both his manner and effectiveness, he was an annoyance whose physical (and especially mental) shortcomings were obvious to any other character in the film save himself. The plot development (and the angle that makes this a "peaceful samurai" movie as described in the DVD's bonus materials) takes a unique twist when a mysterious stranger intervenes on Kazamatsuri's inevitable defeat of Heishiro and his companions and, with the help of his daughter, nurses the injured man back to health. Heishiro of course wants his revenge, but his saviors are pacifists who encourage the renunication of violence...even though Kazamatsuri is suspicious of the stranger's identity and begins to obsess over the idea of challenging him to a duel... But Hotei is just amazing. It's difficult to tell what (if any) acting ability he has due to the minimal dialogue written for his character, but he definitely has presence. You can't take your eyes off him whenever he is onscreen. He is literally head and shoulders taller than anyone else onscreen, and he moves as effortlessly as the wind. And his eyes...he could cut diamonds with that stare. Terrific performance. Watching this was a pleasing experience. The action is decent and the fight scenes are passable; none of the actors are professional martial artists and the production values aren't those of a Hong Kong action flick wherein a great number of special effects are used to enhance the action. But it is a well-shot film, mostly black-&-white with enough color scenes thrown in at intense moments to delight the arthouse crowd. The DVD extras are multiple (the documentary footage seems a bit redundant; an extra feature on scoring the movie would have been more appreciated by this reviewer); a nice "extra touch" are two scenes shown in color just to give an idea as to how the movie would look if shot naturally. In short, this is a very interesting movie. It's artsy enough for the hipster sect, and it's got enough action to appeal to martial arts buffs. And it's not excessively violent despite the swordplay, nor is it sexually explicit despite a fair amount of the story taking place in a brothel (failed to mention that part, did I? You'll just have to see it in order to find out how that angle plays into the story). It's worth a viewing to anyone who's a fan of or at all curious about the genre. "Old School"I need to put my two cents in. First let me say I'm from the old school samurai classics from Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, Gosha, Inagaki, etc., etc. I've been brought up with these movies since the '50's. I've found the return of the chambara movies refreshing and wanting to draw the western culture into it's audience. Director Nakano took "Samurai Fiction" to even another level of audience. Back to the Japanese youths. This was a movie with great satire and humor, including action and a good story. It didn't take itself seriously. It just said "get in, sit down and shut up". Enjoy the ride.  "You've got to be kidding me..."This is the Classic Must see Samurai Film I've bin hearing about?..Right..Well I happend to rent this ol' "gem" yesterday at blockbuster from reading about how superb this epic Samurai Film is. I should have sticked to Douglas's Review and the other review. This film is not a classic. Stick to Kurosawa films and ignore this one. I don't wanna sound harsh but I didn't enjoy this film one bit, it wasn't funny though it was trying to be, obviously this film is trying to be hip and new which is totally fails at, I thought the characters wern't great at all and I had no sympathy except for one of the characters and for some reason that villian looked so annoying! I just wanted to slap him in the face! And what's with the music! It was like watching a really bad MTV original movie. I agree with the reviewer saying this was more for the MTV generation since the Film had terrible lame music. Overall the Music was one of the reasons that really got me ticked. Samurai Fiction is entertaining I guess but not the epic classic I was expecting. I loathed almost everything about it. The characters, music, and especially that idiotic villian who was seemed very gay(literaly). Overall this was one of those films that I didn't enjoy one bit. Though I like the clever the black and white, and some witty dialoug which I enjoyed for about 3 seconds. I will probably get some negative review(unless people are mature enough to mind there own buinsness and let people give there opinions instead of bashing them)and in the end...I give this film a 2 out of 5....Not the epic Samurai film I was expecting... Lates.. |
