A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this movie but since it was included in the ‘They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’ list, I thought I might as well check it out. First of all, I wonder if the English title was a literal translation of the Japanese title but it is probably one of the greatest titles I came across. It might sound cryptic but it completely made sense with this movie, especially during the very last scene. Concerning Sadao Yamanaka, I had never heard of the guy before, he apparently died pretty young but he was apparently a major influence on all the great Japanese directors that came afterwards such as Akira Kurosawa or Yasujirô Ozu. And, indeed, it was quite impressive how immersive the world created by Yamanaka was. He really gave you the feeling that you were transported 2 centuries ago in Feudal Japan and you basically spent most of the running time in some rather poor neighborhood with so many intriguing characters. It was also pretty neat how, even though the material was fairly dark and the hopes of the involved characters were rather bleak, there was still quite a lot of humor. And, yet, the damned thing was still missing something though. It might had to do with the fact that, since there were quite a lot of characters involved, many were not really developed whatsoever. There was also the fact that, even though Shinza was always intriguing and kept surprising me, I had a hard time to care about Matajuro Unno, the ronin. I mean, how many times do you need to get rejected before moving on? Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t completely blow me away, it was still a strong vintage Japanese drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.