Popular reviews

• 

  Review by Jay ★★★ 2

  succession with samurai (half of them are gay)

• 

  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 1

  Takeshi Kitano comes out of retirement for an anachronistic retelling of the Honnō-ji incident as a farcically chaotic mess of feudal Japanese palace intrigue, gay samurai sex, and mud-soaked decapitations that he wrote back in the 90s when he was being similarly subversive with the yakuza and cop movie genre. In fact, I suspect what attracted him to this history was the duplicitous and cutthroat nature of the types of hierarchy alliances and betrayals that had to have occurred in order to result in the truly ludicrous body count of this time period, and how similar they were in thought process to the gangster characters he liked who were constantly tasked with sacrificing their fleshy bodies for their boss. It…

• 

  Review by Realkinoshit ★★★½ 1

  TGHFF2023 #12

  Q&A with THE legendary director/actor himself Takeshi Kitano 🐐

  This movie is hilarious; you think it's a historical war film, but it's actually a historically based gay comedy 💀

  While the film includes the typical power struggles, gun&katana fights, and large-scale battles of a historical war movie, what impressed me the most is how every famous Japanese historical figure, under Takeshi Kitano's direction, becomes super crazy and funny. The complex relationships among these men, breaking the traditional focus on heterosexual emotions in historical films, adds novelty and humor to the entire movie! Only someone of Takeshi Kitano's caliber could gather such a strong cast for such a crazy film.

  Takeshi Kitano's aesthetic of violence is satisfying, as reflected…

• 

  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★½ 2

  A comedy about a bunch of dudes trying to bloody conquest each other’s bodies (by decapitation if possible). A very good blend of Kitano’s populist and perverse sides. So lots of jokes, lots of violence, an expansive sense of place, wonderful battle scenes, an odd mix of tones, a love for repetition and off beat changes of pace, a general nastiness and frustrating payoffs. It is an inquiry on spectacle as much as lust for power.

• 

  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★

  Probably the blackest humour in Kitano's entire career, so much so that it basically stops being funny - but that isn't really a criticism here given how much this movie has going for it. A total de-romanticization of heroes of Japanese folklore, so in the place of feats of heroism we endless crude (and cruel) political machinations, an uneducated peasant class that supports its own subjugation, a monarch who rules on the basis of his whims and mental illness, and a remarkable disregard for human life by figureheads in power - both on the throne and by those seeking to ascend to it, so "casualties" become something assumed as the standard. Incredibly nihilistic - but refreshingly so I suppose, because…

• 

  Review by Jack McDermott ★★★½ 4

  Head was given and heads were taken

• 

  Review by Tigran Airapetian

  when i heard that kitano was making his "final" film about nobunaga's death, the second jidaigeki in his career, a project 30 years in the making, i expected it to be a good, not great swan song from an inconsistent master. what i couldn't predict was takeshi firing on all cylinders, making 'ran''s comedic gay cousin and creating some of his bloodiest and funniest stuff, a tale of senseless muddy violent chaos, of cyclical death and unending double-crosses, exhilarating and exhausting all at once. long live beat takeshi. what a banger

• 

  Review by Ben ★★★★★ 6

  JAPAN CUTS 2024

  I do not know where to begin with Kubi.

  The cast is SUPER stacked. Like, I pretty much adore every single person involved with the film.

  The violence is bonkers in a satisfyingly hilarious way. I cannot even begin to estimate the amount of beheadings and limbs lost in this masterwork.

  Kitano leans as heavily as possible into dark comedy and straight-up slapstick, and every little wink at the camera and joke worked for me. You can tell the cast was having a blast throughout the film, and their energy is undoubtedly infectious and translates to the viewer.

  The movie looks damn good. I loved the sets, battles, and everything in between.

  Kitano's satirization of these real…

• 

  Review by Moresbi ★★★★½

  #18 - Takeshi Kitano from Japanuary Challenge 2025

  Progress: 44/35

  "Know your place!" 👋😤😡

  "The greatest goal for a warrior is to become ruler of the land." (Uh-Oh!) 😏🤔🫣

  "You're disgusting." (nasty!) 😅😱🤮

  "I'm just a whore with a stick." (lmao) 😇😂😳

  "Whether we live or die depends on who pays what." (greed, baby! Susumu Terajima demanding payment lol) 🤑😜😁

  "You're developing a taste for the way of the Samurai." (totally another "code" lmao!) 😱🥵🤕

  "You're preaching to a priest!" (lmao!) 😅😂🤣

  "They're all out of their minds." (Nailed it!) 🤯🙂‍↕️😝

  "Kubi" was (comically) outrageous, (funnilly) brutal and severely entertaining/captivating 👌I will also add challenging, to some degree.

  The synopsis doesn't quite cover it lol From what I could check,…

• 

  Review by Sean Gilman ★★★★½ 1

  Not quite better than Seven Samurai, but Kitano comes a lot closer to that mark than I expected he would.

  Reviewed as part of my coverage of the 2024 Japan Cuts festival.

• 

  Review by DamRibeiro ★★★★ 7

  Samurais gays manipulativos assassinos e sanguinários mostrados de um jeito que você nunca viu antes e causando muito na guerra, eu tô até agora incrédulo com esse filme não para de morrer gente um momento sequer, não sou tão familiarizado com histórias de samurai mais sem dúvidas Kubi entrega algo realmente violento e não nós poupa de esconder nenhum detalhe das mortes, eles dilaceram tudo a sua volta sem nenhum pudor, seu contexto Queer vai além do que apresentar simples relações homoeróticas desse tempo, existe todo um jogo de poder que envolve até a forma como eles vão se relacionar já que conquistar se torna a única opção almejada, não importando qual método eles vão usar o maior objetivo e…

• 

  Review by Rafi Morris ★★★★½

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.