I get it. The samurai trilogy by Inagaki is based on an epic series of novels.
Yah, well, so was Dune.
For something based on an epic, this movie - part II - feels so local, so constrained, so stage-bound. I don't get any real sense of Mifune's character's arc. Sure, he tries telling us, but it's rarely shown to us. It feels false.
His swordplay doesn't make up for it. Especially when a pivotal battle at a bridge is filmed nearly in darkness. That was very frustrating to watch. Was Mifune pregnant at the time or something?
There's also a major storytelling problem. Movies about manly men doing manly things - Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, to name two relevant examples - should pretty much not include women except were absolutely necessary. Those movies had sideshow love interests for Mifune and Bucholz, but that's all they were, sideshows. In the Samurai trilogy they're front and centre. OK, fine. It's a samurai chick flick. Then you'd better pay off for the romantics in the audience. Instead, we get the two younger women suffering what can only be described as psychological abuse at the hands of Mifune's character (toward Otsu) and the devious mother (towards Akemi, who also gets shabbily treated by Matahachi). Is it the novelist or the moviemakers who don't understand how chivalry is supposed to work? Because I can't see these movies satisfying the either the men or the women in the audience.
Yah, well, so was Dune.
For something based on an epic, this movie - part II - feels so local, so constrained, so stage-bound. I don't get any real sense of Mifune's character's arc. Sure, he tries telling us, but it's rarely shown to us. It feels false.
His swordplay doesn't make up for it. Especially when a pivotal battle at a bridge is filmed nearly in darkness. That was very frustrating to watch. Was Mifune pregnant at the time or something?
There's also a major storytelling problem. Movies about manly men doing manly things - Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, to name two relevant examples - should pretty much not include women except were absolutely necessary. Those movies had sideshow love interests for Mifune and Bucholz, but that's all they were, sideshows. In the Samurai trilogy they're front and centre. OK, fine. It's a samurai chick flick. Then you'd better pay off for the romantics in the audience. Instead, we get the two younger women suffering what can only be described as psychological abuse at the hands of Mifune's character (toward Otsu) and the devious mother (towards Akemi, who also gets shabbily treated by Matahachi). Is it the novelist or the moviemakers who don't understand how chivalry is supposed to work? Because I can't see these movies satisfying the either the men or the women in the audience.