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Samurai Banners Director: Hiroshi Inagaki Number of Items: 1 Format: Color Running Time: 166 minutes Studio: AnimEigo Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2005-07-12 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.5 "Not as good as Heaven and Earth" There is a better, newer movie about this famous battle called: Heaven and Earth. "A John Ford-ish Japanese historical epic." If anybody not to enjoy bluffs of acrobatic samurai-ninja messacre, this is the very choice. The classic example of relationship between great commander and thoughtful lieutenant (probably comparable to that of MacArther and Ike! ). The story is based on the earlier life of the Great Takeda Shinken, whose reputation is far above Tokugawa and Toyotomi even today. Takeda and his best warrior, Gen. Yamamoto Kansuke(Toshiro Mifune)'s struggle to empower the clan among numerous medieval lordships is well illustrated. Takashi Shimura(A Kurosawa's favorite, in Seven Samurai and Ikiru)'s performance is superb, costumes and music is very well-organized as if the shot was located in real medieval Japan. Not only good documentary for understanding the aura and sprit of Japanese warlords, but also comparable text to classic hollywood western genre in terms of stereotyped masculinity. If somebody eager for the sequel to this film, Kurosawa's 'Kagemusha' might be the right stuff. A MUST ONE! "No match for kurosawa, but quiet a good one" Well-structured, a rather interesting storyline and well-choreographed battlescenes: these are the main strengths of this epic. On the other hand, you have some little-enthusiastic actors, playing their boring part in a sometimes even more boring way, except the great Toshiro Mifune, of course. However, he sometimes seems a little lost, as if being at the wrong place, waisting his energy while trying to bring on his one-man-show. All this makes the movie lack a certain deepness of the caracters, destroying any approach to a real, memorial warlord-saga. The comparison with Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" seems to be a little unfair, but you gotta pay some respects to Mifune's and Inagaki's efforts, however. Perhaps a "must see" for every Samuraifan, but none for anyone else. "Good War Epic" I liked this movie a lot. It may not have the depth of a Kurosawa samurai epic. But the film's director, Hiroshi Inagaki was no slouch. Anyone who's seen his other movies (Chushingura, Samurai Trilogy, just to name a few) knows he's very adept at handling sweeping dramas with large casts of characters. The Japanese title of this movie is Furinkazan which refers to the Kanji characters on the banner flown by the Takeda clan. It describes the military strategy of the clan's leader, Shingen - swift as the wind (fu), quiet as a forest (rin), aggressive like fire (ka), and stable like a mountain (zan). I guess that's a little too much to put in an English title! The battle scenes in this movie are pretty good. But I also liked the story of unrequitted love involving two of the main characters, Kansuke Yamamoto and Princess Yu. Toshiro Mifune plays Kansuke, an actual historical figure who was a military strategist for the Takeda clan. Yoshiko Sakuma gives a spirited performance as the beautiful and sometimes feisty princess. Some Western viewers may find the movie's love story a little strange since there are no open declarations of affection, and no hugging and kissing. This is a typical old-fashioned Japanese romance. The movie reaches its climax at Kawanakajima, the scene of one of the most famous battles in Japanese history. It was there that Kansuke made a huge military blunder that nearly spelled doom for the Takeda clan. If you like epic war dramas with a little romance thrown in, then you might want to give this movie a try.