Tajomaru: Avenging Blade (2009)

A fun entertaining movie to watch. A cool samurai loses his estate, his older brother is murdered and his longtime girlfriend is coerced into marrying the bad guy. The cool samurai kills a renowned thief and takes on his name: Tajomaru. He then joins a group of bandits and after some time learns that the cause of all his troubles was his childhood friend. He goes and confronts his ex-friend and ends up in a dungeon. Luckily a military lord, acting as judge, investigates what really happened. We learn from some testimonies what intrigue had really happened. The shogun comes and takes sides with the bad guy but the cool samurai is rescued by his bandit friends. He seeks out the girlfriend, and returns to have a sword battle the bad guy. There is kind of rock music soundtrack to this movie which makes it interesting. It makes the film feel modern rather than stuffy and old. The plot twists really are like the novel Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa.

At first i thought it was some kind of Z-Movies with bad actors, but after i while, i got enticed with the story.It looks more like theater actors than movie actors in my mind, but they conveyed the story greatly - i mean, the acting is not realistic like in real life, but more "played", but not too much like in theater.And each time i thought the movie was ending, there was another turnaround. (i didn't check the movie's length :) )Some fine sword fights to watch too, more in the stances than in the motions, but interesting enough.Anyway, i think this movie if for those who love Asian movies, i think/fear that closed people will just mark it as "not enough American" for them.

This Japanese movie is a must see for the experienced and true lover of the genre. I must admit it is a new way of telling and old story but with superb achievement. This movie will touch your heart while satisfying the thrill of many great fight scenes. The score has the well known feel of such a saga and a well placed Asian Pop feel if you can believe they can be interwoven. This one pulls it off, over the top.Followed closely the plot will unfold perfectly. A very deep and satisfying story that is not drawn out. Please do yourself a favor and do not miss this gem....I Cried....I Smiled ....I yelled ....and Cheered.!!!

A lavish and interesting production. It is clearly made in a new style, telling an old Japanese story. The story is quite good, though the plot has a lot of holes. For example there is a betrayal by the young boy "adopted" by the two brothers, but no explanation of why or how that came to pass. I gave this film a low rating because of the sound track. The background music is not appropriate to the film in any way. It is like some 15 year old kid added his favorite music to a new film. The music, none of which is Japanese, is really bad, inappropriate and at times almost destroys the scenes it is playing "behind". Whoever thought of adding this terrible collection of modern, western music to a Japanese period film is lost and confused. Were it not for this I would have given the interesting story, lavish costuming and acting a higher score.