Samurai Fiction (1998)

SAMURAI FICTION (4 outta 5 stars) What a terrific movie! It's described as a comedy but, while it does have a lot of humour in it, I think it holds up pretty well with any of the classic samurai stories. The movie is in black and white (with select use of colored images throughout) and I found the visual style very reminiscent of early Kurosawa. In fact, if I had been told that this was an early Kurosawa movie I would have believed it completely. Except for the soundtrack, that is! As old fashioned as the look of the movie is, it has a very modern rock soundtrack by the great Tomayasu Hotei (you know his music from "Kill Bill"). Tomayasu even co-stars in the movie.. playing Kazamatsuri, the badass samurai who steals a clan's revered ceremonial sword and triggers some strong (violent) emotions. After nearly killing a trio of young men bent on recovering the sword, Kazamatsuri becomes obsessed with fighting a peace-loving samurai master who has given up the idea of violence and killing. But maybe he will change his tune if his daughter is threatened...? Great plot, great performances... the actual swordplay may seem a little less flashy than most modern epics but its still exciting stuff, especially when backed by Tomayasu's stirring rock score! The soundtrack might be the one thing that puts people off this movie... personally I didn't find it distracting or "wrong" at all. The old-style movie directing and the "MTV Music" style melded perfectly.

In reality this is the second Japanese film I have seen, the first being "Hero." It is no let down. Once again the Japanese have delivered a truly beautiful and excellent movie. ("Ghost in the Shell" is Japanese, but animation just doesn't compare to these two movies.) "Samurai Fiction" is done in black and white, which (IMO) adds to the story. (Color always seemed a distraction to me - there's more drama in black and white.) Now that I think of it there is no diminish in the beauty either. So nearly everything is perfect with this movie.What held it back as a 10 is the use of music. At the beginning and in the middle the music is cross-cultural and completely obliterates all of the atmosphere the director worked so hard to create. (Some too modern music is used and some too old music is used - a rather _major_ disappointment for me.) However, (and quite suddenly) the music gets in synchronization (i.e. the style and selection match perfectly) with the movie. And so I slipped quite easily back into the story. But the rest of the movie is so beautiful and well done that I (it) didn't get in my way of giving the movie a 9 out of 10. (Loose these bad matches and the movie is a 10/10.) Human stories are true and dramatic across all cultures. (Perhaps one day God will bless man to realize this.) 9/10-Zafoid

Labelled as 'a samurai movie for the MTV generation', this unfortunately is only half-accurate and does a great disservice to the film. When a film is labelled as 'for the MTV generation', we think of fast-cuts, jump-cuts, loud techno, a soundtrack designed purely to make money, weak-plot, and something to keep grabbing our weak attention spans every five minutes to make sure we're still interested. This film is not one of those.The soundtrack is a modern sounding bluesy/rock/techno affair which in many scenes is actually superbly in line with the events of the film. At times, some may find the music jarring with the period setting, but it never overwhelms you by getting in the way of the film or the story.The story itself starts out as being fairly ordinary samurai fare, but as the film progresses so too does the story, adding many additional layers to both the protagonist and the antagonist of the piece, as well as raising some very good and thoughtful moments.The story does not race along like a modern day adventure or action film, in fact it has the same kind of pace that you would expect from a Kurosawa piece at times, or a spaghetti western. Slow and languorous with occasional bursts of violence.All of the main actors acquit themselves more than adequately, in both the dramatic sequences and the all-important duelling scenes.This though, because of it's revisionist nature, is one of those films that will truly divide people. Some will consider a great piece of revisionism for the samurai legend, others won't be able to tolerate the modern sounding soundtrack. Neither are wrong, here it all comes down to what you expect or want from a samurai film. Although it worth pointing out that the classic samurai films also had 'modern' sounding scores when they were made, no samurai film has a truly 'authentic' soundtrack.I personally found the film to be hugely enjoyable and at times moving, and I would heartily recommend it to most people that I know.

Music video director Nakano Hiroyuki offers his superb feature film debut, photographed in brilliant black and white. The film moves at a rapid pace, filled with episodes of great swordplay action and a number of hilarious antics. Popular Japanese guitarist Hotei Tomoyasu not only provides the movie's excellent soundtrack but also portrays the powerful samurai master Kazamatsuri. Terrific performances all around, but it's Fukikoshi Mitsuro as the wonderfully silly Inukai Heishiro and Ogawa Tamaki as the strong-willed Koharu (Heishiro's love interest) who steal the movie.