Samurai Fiction

Trying to be a samurai gag succeeds half of the time. Using contemporary music to accentuate the non serious attitude is not a good choice. Aesthetically acceptable.

A goofy but enjoyable take on samurai films. It has some great moments but does tend to get long in the tooth halfway through the film and doesn't pick up again until towards the end.

A good story about a couple of skilled swordsmen, one ready to demonstrate his killing skills, and one determined not to kill but even more skillful. Much of the story is spent on the rambunctious son of a royal who is determined to fight a far superior opponent. A gentle samurai spares him, and many of the lord minions also help to keep him from being killed. In the final duel, we learn which of them has the superior skills. There is also an extremely lovely woman who plays the daughter.

Nakano succeeds well with a very basic, done-to-death plot by taking it to fun, quirky new places with the over the top characters, comedic indulgences, selective coloring, and compellingly different music. The narration and ambiguous framing story could definitely go... I want to say this has some Seijun Suzuki influences, in the looseness of it.

A funny, quirky and charming spoof of the samurai genre. I love how this movie never takes itself seriously.

An okay samurai flick, obviously intended as a kind of stylized 60's jidai geki with modern touches. Obsessed with trying to be "cool", the film's constant self-awareness is somewhat annoying. Everyone seems to spend so much time standing around going "look at me, I'm in a samurai movie, I'm cool" that not enough good stuff actually happens. *shrugs*

its a silly homage. The only real treat for this movie is the villain, who as I understand also made the score. Still, samurai movies are almost always a good time.

As someone who does not enjoy "real" samurai movies (okay, okay, "jidai geki"), this flick was quite the breath of fresh air.

Enjoyable, but not great. The action isn't good enough for how cool the film wants to be, and the comedy isn't sustained enough to carry it through.