I cannot appreciate movies or dramas made about samurais but I had to watch this because it has my Takuya Kimura. He has won rave reviews for his role here and I wanted to see how well he did.
He acted his blind samurai role really well, sheding all traces of his former roles. At some point, he even looked gaunt and ugly. But somehow, this movie doesn’t make him shine.
Unlike most samurai movies which are action flicks with lots of sword wielding, Bushi no Ichibun or Love and Honour is different. It is a love story but I found the plot really lacking depth and to a certain extent, credibility. It was also excruciatingly slow and if not because of Takuya, I would have given up watching beyond the first 15 mins. My husband who can watch samurai films repeatedly clearly didn’t enjoy this as well.
Watch this only if you’re a hardcore Takuya Kimura fan.
Pst.. where did you get this movie from? Downloading huh?
It’s very hard to get hold of Japs movies over here..
ZM: No lah…DVD purchased from the VCD shop. Legal one… maybe you need to try online like YesAsia or something…
Comment by zara's mama — Mon, 2 Jul 2007 @ 10:07 am
You know, tastes for films cold be very different. You stopped after 15 min, I rewatched the whole film 5 times already. ;)Personally I loved “Bushi” very much and it seemed very wise, beautiful and charming film for me. And it didn’t seem slow at all. But I loved the two previous Yamada’s samurai films, too. May be this is just not your type of movie.
Olly: That’s true, that tastes in movie are different as in other situations as well. I did continue and finish the movie however. Well, like I said, I don’t enjoy movies about Samurai so maybe that’s why. But my hubby who usually enjoy such movies also didn’t enjoy.
Comment by Olly — Fri, 6 Jul 2007 @ 5:16 am
Possibly your hubby enjoys traditional type of samurai movies. But Yamada’s “samurai trilogy” is untypical and non-traditional - that’s why it became so famous in international cinema world. It fact his 3 samurai films are the art-house movies, not a mainstream samurai flics. Yamada created a new approach to this traditional genre, new view on it, breaking it rules, showing real life, not a heroic legend…
Olly: Yup, did read about that. Which was why I was even more disappointed cos I thought I might enjoy it since it’s different.
Comment by Olly — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 @ 7:23 am
OPS. Than it is just not ‘you’ film. Alas.:( But this happends sometimes.
Olly:
Comment by Olly — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 @ 1:19 am