Hideo OguniReviews

Samurai Macbeth is bad at megalomania.

2.5/4 (Okay).

It has some great moments, but even the good scenes are impossibly slow and drawn out.

Two idiots help a general smuggles a princess over enemy lines.

2.5/4 (Okay).

There's a lot of stuff to like about it, but it's too long and slow.

The song "Gondola no Uta," sung by the protagonist Watanabe, sounds like a passage out of the book of Ecclesiastes and may be translated as follows:

Life is brief.
Fall in love, maidens,
before the crimson bloom
fades from your lips,
before the tides of passion
cool within you...
For there are those of you
who will know no tomorrow.

Life is brief.
Fall in love, maidens,
before his hands
take up his boat,
before the flush of his cheeks fades...
For there are those of you
who will never return here.

Life is brief.
Fall in love, maidens,
before the boat drifts away
on the waves,
before the hand resting on your shoulder
becomes frail...
For there are those who will never
be seen here again.

Life is brief.
Fall in love, maidens,
before your raven tresses
begin to fade,
before the flame in your hearts
flickers and dies...
For today, once passed,
is never to come again.

A wandering samurai helps an inept group stop a coup.

3/4 (Good).

When it's good, it's great. At times it's kind of weird; something's lost in translation, and we couldn't always tell which parts were meant to be funny.½

Gee, I know it's a classic and I'm supposed to love it, and I usually do love classics. But it is way too slow and not nearly as exciting as its descendent, The Magnificent Seven.½

King Lear set in feudal Japan.

The story is great, of course, although it moves far too slowly. It's a very pretty movie; the cinematography isn't so great however where it comes to telling the story (beyond setting the tone). For most of the movie he insists on staying on a wide shot, which makes it (1) feel more like watching a play than a movie (arguably a good thing) and (2) difficult in places to tell which character is saying which line.

A wandering samurai tries to get rival gangs to kill each other.

Great, fun movie. Mifune's character is probably one of the best (or at least most important) ever put on film. This movie's not quite as good as the spaghetti westerns it inspired, though. (Interestingly, it isn't just the plot and characters that Sergio Leone ripped off, but also the style. And the few aspects of the style Leone missed got picked up by Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill.)

(Jun. 2009)½

Samurai defend a village from bandits.

A three-and-a-half hour historical epic, and it doesn't bore me. This should not be possible.

Concept: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: A

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 3.5/4

A man wants to learn to live when he finds out he’s dying.

Well made and depressing. It's a cliche, but every cliche needs at least one great movie for the others to copy.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: A

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 2.7/4

Shakespeare would have loved this telling of MacBeth.

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