7cb1d79195 A noble young samurai searches for a thief who has stolen a precious treasure and killed one of his clansmen and meets an older samurai who tries to deter him from the violence of revenge. Three centuries ago, a precious sword has been stolen by Kazamatsuri – the sword, which historic and symbolic value is priceless for the clan (Shogun Tokugawa donated it to clan 80 years before that, at the same time that he established themthe local rulers). Lord&#39;s counselor&#39;s young son Heishiro goes to retrieve the sword himself to protect the clan from the shame or possible demise. He is accompanied with two friends, Shintaro and Tadasuke, and followed by the ninjas of the clan. After Kazamatsuri wounds Heishiro and kills one of his friends, the young aristocrat still wants revenge more than sword itself, but meanwhile have to recover from his wounds, in the small forest house of a lonely samurai and his daughter. At the same time, Kamazatsuri stays in nearby town in the entertainment center run by Okatsu and falls into her. The older samurai tries to dissuade Heishiro from fighting with Kamazatsuri, but is himself gradually drawn into the conflict. Labelled&#39;a samurai movie for the MTV generation&#39;, this unfortunately is only half-accurate and does a great disservice to the film. When a film is labelled&#39;for the MTV generation&#39;, we think of fast-cuts, jump-cuts, loud techno, a soundtrack designed purely to make money, weak-plot, and something to keep grabbing our weak attention spans every five minutes to make sure we&#39;re still interested. This film is not one of those.<br/><br/>The soundtrack is a modern sounding bluesy/rock/techno affair which in many scenes is actually superbly in line with the events of the film. At times, some may find the music jarring with the period setting, but it never overwhelms you by getting in the way of the film or the story.<br/><br/>The story itself starts outbeing fairly ordinary samurai fare, butthe film progresses so too does the story, adding many additional layers to both the protagonist and the antagonist of the piece,wellraising some very good and thoughtful moments.<br/><br/>The story does not race along like a modern day adventure or action film, in fact it has the same kind of pace that you would expect from a Kurosawa piece at times, or a spaghetti western. Slow and languorous with occasional bursts of violence.<br/><br/>All of the main actors acquit themselves more than adequately, in both the dramatic sequences and the all-important duelling scenes.<br/><br/>This though, because of it&#39;s revisionist nature, is one of those films that will truly divide people. Some will consider a great piece of revisionism for the samurai legend, others won&#39;t be able to tolerate the modern sounding soundtrack. Neither are wrong, here it all comes down to what you expect or want from a samurai film. Although it worth pointing out that the classic samurai films also had &#39;modern&#39; sounding scores when they were made, no samurai film has a truly &#39;authentic&#39; soundtrack.<br/><br/>I personally found the film to be hugely enjoyable and at times moving, and I would heartily recommend it to most people that I know. In reality this is the second Japanese film I have seen, the first being &quot;Hero.&quot; It is no let down. Once again the Japanese have delivered a truly beautiful and excellent movie. (&quot;Ghost in the Shell&quot; is Japanese, but animation just doesn&#39;t compare to these two movies.) &quot;Samurai Fiction&quot; is done in black and white, which (IMO) adds to the story. (Color always seemed a distraction to me - there&#39;s more drama in black and white.) Now that I think of it there is no diminish in the beauty either. So nearly everything is perfect with this movie.<br/><br/>What held it backa 10 is the use of music. At the beginning and in the middle the music is cross-cultural and completely obliterates all of the atmosphere the director worked so hard to create. (Some too modern music is used and some too old music is used - a rather _major_ disappointment for me.) However, (and quite suddenly) the music gets in synchronization (i.e. the style and selection match perfectly) with the movie. And so I slipped quite easily back into the story. But the rest of the movie is so beautiful and well done that I (it) didn&#39;t get in my way of giving the movie a 9 out of 10. (Loose these bad matches and the movie is a 10/10.) Human stories are true and dramatic across all cultures. (Perhaps one day God will bless man to realize this.) 9/10<br/><br/>-Zafoid
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