Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

fabiogaucho The last days of an era are a common motif in Japanese samurai movies. Apparently there is something regarded as especially tragic in that process, and many movies try to show that. So there is nothing very particular about this movie, in terms of theme. The appeal is mostly in the peculiar main character.The problem is, the movie tries for too much. In the first 50 minutes we are totally engaged by Yoshimura, by his tensions with the samurai group he has joined, the curiosity about his motives, and the prospect of the civil war engulfing their lives. It is a fine drama, with the required sword-fighting on top. Yoshimura is a great character.But the last hour is just incredibly overlong and sentimental. The story goes in the right direction, and the fate of the characters seem a natural development of what was set up. So why make it so long and melodramatic?I think the director thought of this movie as more than another drama/adventure samurai. He wanted an epic. It does not work that way. There are only enough characters and plot for the drama of one man and his friends, not of the entire Japan. Thematically, nothing was added because of the long second half. No great insight about humanity, just a bunch of tears, snow, flowing water, and redundant sad speeches. The very same themes and plot resolution could have been done in 20 minutes instead of 60, and the film could wrap up in a nice 100 minutes, losing nothing. What a shame. In aiming for greatness, what could be a great movie was spoiled. Maybe you could watch it on DVD and play everything after the battle in 2x speed...

tomgillespie2002 Beginning in 1899, ageing samurai Saito (Koichi Sato) brings his child into a doctor's office. While the doctor's wife tends to the sick child, Saito and the doctor, Ono (Takehiro Murata), begin talking when Saito notices a photograph of his old colleague and master Yoshimura (Kiichi Nakai). Saito begins to tell his story from his first meeting with Yoshimura, a gifted swordsman, during the era of the Tokugawa shogunate. Yoshimura has brought shame on himself by leaving his small town clan after realising he cannot support his family, in order to join the Shinsengumi, a samurai police force that is slowly building a reputation and small army. Seen as a miser and a clown, Yoshimura slowly gains respect due to his loyalty to his clan, and his fresh outlook on life, just as war approaches.Rarely have I seen a movie shift in quality so much as When the Last Sword is Drawn. After a solid, exciting and intriguing first 70 or so minutes, the tone of the film shifts so drastically for the remainder that it threatens to completely ruin what preceded it. Winding down into a seemingly endless conveyor belt of emotional and highly sentimental scenes, the film quite frankly becomes a bore, and often feels like it's trying to desperately squeeze tears out of you. Although the performances are impressive (especially lead Nakai), the script is so chocked full of clichés that this becomes redundant.Yet the film as a whole does have much to admire, as it explores themes of loyalty and family, and asks whether you can ever truly know someone. Sairo and Ono both have their sides of the story to tell, and have slightly conflicting memories of Yoshimura. Often his character can betray his own beliefs, creating conflicts within his personality, whether this is to show how memory can betray you, or the complexity of the human character I don't know, but Yoshimura is a fascinating character, and different to the usual brooding samurai. This would have been a very good film had it been shaved by about thirty minutes, or didn't spend so much time on tearful goodbyes and sentimental monologuing, But director Yojiro Takita is intent, and the film sadly doesn't have the scope or the quality to justify its 140+ running time.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

ebiros2 This movie is based on Jiro Asada's novel. This was the first samural novel for Asada, and it was also turned into a TV drama in 2002. The movie won the Japanese Academy Award of 2004.The story is about period leading up to Meiji reform in Japan. Japan was split into two faction. One side was supporting the Shogunate, and the other the Emperor. The story is told by Hajime Saito (Hiroshi Sato) who found a picture of Kanichiro Yoshimura (Kiichi Nakai) at the doctors office. A war partner he fought together during Meiji reform. The doctor was related to Kanichiro in that he married his daughter. Story is told by both the doctor and Hajime about what they know about Kanichiro.Jiro Asada got the idea for writing this novel because his daughter started attending college in Morioka which used to be the territory of Nanbu clan where Kanichiro used to live.The story to me makes no sense at all. Kanichiro thought about his family enough to run away from his lord's clan to find a better paying job outside. Why would someone like that take a suicidal route to be on the losing side to the end despite the fact that Hajime and others told him not to ? I also don't understand why his son decided to join the war as well. He needed to look after the family after his father.To me the story seems to rely on plot Japanese call "Shini ochi" where story ends by the character dying. This is convenient, because it draw pity from the audience, and brings to light the moral perfection of the one who dies.The movie attempts to be like Yoji Yamada's series of samurai movies, but fails because the original story isn't as well formulated as Shuhei Fujisawa's novels, and director didn't do the caliber job as Yoji Yamada. On the defense of director Yojiro Takida who directed this movie, originally this movie was supposed to be directed by Shinji Soumai but due to his sudden demise, Takida was called in to fill his role. This might not have given Takida enough time to get fully prepared.The story makes this movie not as entertaining as it could be. But execution is pretty good, so it's worth watching for its production value.

siderite This was a beautiful movie, yet a difficult one to watch. The main character, played very well by Kiichi Nakai, is a man of the land. He loves his country and his family and he is also a samurai. That puts him into a very uncomfortable position when money is too scarce for his family to be able to survive. He then does the dishonorable thing, he leaves the clan in order to earn money for his family.The story in itself is the message of the movie, with all its details, not the main storyline. The action is placed in the time when samurai are being replaced with gun powder and Japan is in great turmoil. In the end, he returns to his homeland and restores honor to his family, so it's a circular kind of tale, but in the meanwhile, you see how different people, in different situations and social classes, react, how friendships are made and unmade.What makes this movie better than most is the way the main character is constructed. He is far from the cliché of the samurai, a lot more human. If this could have been told in a shorter way, everyone would have been happier, though. While the last scenes are heartbreaking, they are also too theatrical for my taste.I have seen Twilight Samurai compared with this movie. I do think that TS was better, but this is still a very good movie.