I don’t usually like the very ‘straight’ samurai films about the honor code and sacrifice. I’ve always sided more with morally ambiguous characters. So I was quite excited to see how the ronin in this film were portrayed without mercy — they had no morals whatsoever and no shame, living only for money, drink, and women (in that order). In fact Jushiro Konoe’s character is upfront about living off women — ‘Why should I work when I can have a…
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Freelance Samurai 1957
Misumi was one of the two reasons I started my samurai dive (Gosha being the other), but I hadn’t managed to circle back to him since I started exploring all the other chambara directors. It’s nice to see an early work from him — I’ve seen his three recently restored films but not yet his famous films, and I was struck by the stunning choreography and mise en scène in those films. The choreography in this film is more rough…
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Blue Velvet 1986
When I first saw this I was a teenage budding cinephile, read a whole bunch of shit from film books that said the ending was sarcastic because those robins look animatronic. Now nearing 40 and watching it again for the first time since, I think the ending is quite possibly one of the most sincere things Lynch has done, and that is saying a lot because I don’t think Lynch has a sarcastic bone in his body. In retrospect now…
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Trap 2024
Evidence that the audience will root for whoever is in peril, even if the character is a psycho serial killer. The film tests this successfully as the escape scenario first half gives way to several delicious changes of perspective in the second. Josh Hartnett is a serial killer cosplaying as a dad; he performs normality in order to survive. But what he doesn’t know is that everyone else is also performing — ignorance or innocence — and that his performance…
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