Buckets of blood and gore is all this flick has to offer, but it offers it to the viewer with such manic, exuberant glee that you can't help but get caught up in the joy of it all. This is the "Gone With the Wind" of arterial spray movies.
This B&W masterpiece chronicles the events of late Febraury and early March 1860, the beginning of the fall of the samurai. Toshiro Mifune stars as Niiro, a rumpled samurai looking for employment with a repsectable house, who ends up involved in a plot to assassinate the leader of the Ii clan. Beautifully filmed, the backstory unfolds slowly, emphasizing character over hack-and-slash action. Tension builds nicely throughout, leading to the climactic and bloody battle on a snowy field, where Niiro seeks to make his mark. He does indeed, but not how he had intended.
Anyone familiar with Mifune's collaborations with Akira Kurosawa will know what to expect here, as Mifune is… Read more
