MovieChat Forums > Kumokiri Nizaemon (1978) Discussion > stylish substance

stylish substance

posted 17 years ago by dreamonforever1
3 replies | jump to latest

totally disagree with daniel home (who wrote the only critique of this film). it's a very involving story. very forceful acting. swordplay is top notch choreography. plenty of characters; but not hard to follow (if you pay attention). music's great...almost acid guitar riffs at times. though nothing seems out of place. violence is graphic (hence the film's showing up on ifc grindhouse), but i wouldn't say gratuitous. very realistic, except for maybe explosions of blood from sword wounds. certainly not for everybody...or most people. if you like samurai films, martial arts, japanese films or crime thrillers, you'll like this.

sayonara,
gregory 051107

[–] DilvishW 17 years ago

I'm split. I loved the swordplay in this film and found the story fairly interesting, though somewhat cliche for a samurai movie. I love a good revenge story even if it is a rehashed story. I had a few criticisms, one being that it was way too long. There were plenty of silly sublplots that were completely unnecessary but oh well. A second is that I found it difficult at times to keep the characters straight. I'm not stereotyping asians or anything, but I thought, since many of the characters had the exact same hairstyle, it was at times difficult to tell them apart. Also, can someone remind me who the guy who ran into the middle of the fight screaming "I'm not a dog!" was? I had no clue?

[–] sarfael 17 years ago

That was that samurai, who got fired from the police squad. The one who was selling the information to Kumokiris group.

[–] Conspirator_Slash 14 years ago

Nice, but 1. to much sex without a reason 2. too long for such an anticlimatic ending. I like endings where the (anti)hero kicks everyone's ass and then dies heroically. I expected that Nizaemon would die in the big battle and the police officer would kill himself.

Starry Vere, God bless you!