I've seen a variety of Samurai movies before, so I wasn't going into this ignorant (most of Kurosawa's movies, some Zatoichi, Lone Wolf and Cub, etc). When I watch a movie, I don't like to read descriptions or summaries, I just rented it because it was a Samurai movie I hadn't seen (or even heard of.) I went here and read some raving reviews, so I was expecting something rather good. Before I continue, I'd like to mention that this movie highly reminded me of a modern anime called Samurai Champloo. If you liked this movie, you should *love* Champloo. They're very similar concepts, typical Samurai stories set to modern music (in Champloo it's hip hop, here it's rock.) However, Champloo is better. They both also have the occasional anachronism (in this film, it was the occasional modern slang, but that might have been because of the translation. And also probably that singing saw scene. Don't think that existed in the 1700s.)
Anyhow, now what I thought of this movie. Beautiful cinematography, with gorgeously composed shots and the black and white VS color shots were a nice addition, although sometimes overly symbolic. Generally bad editing, they clearly didn't have the budget to show decent fight scenes so they often cut away to make you think something happened that you don't even see. Occasionally they did show something real, but it wasn't very convincing. Nothing a few months of martial arts training can't do. The very beginning of the movie was confusing, with a lot of dialog based on ideas we know little to nothing about. I eventually caught on to the story, but the story wasn't very remarkable either. The typical moral of killing and revenge is bad, nothing particularly genius about it's execution. If it wasn't for the music and other certain effects, this could have easily have been mistaken for a mediocre classic Samurai film from the 50s or 60s. That much was interesting about it. The music added a rather unique and interesting twist to it, making the movie seem a bit cooler, and the action more fun. Samurai + rock music= cool. However, the music itself wasn't always so good, but overall average. Like I said before, if you've seen Samurai Champloo, there's almost no reason to watch this movie, although if you like one you may like the other. Champloo was just much better though.
Anyhow, now what I thought of this movie. Beautiful cinematography, with gorgeously composed shots and the black and white VS color shots were a nice addition, although sometimes overly symbolic. Generally bad editing, they clearly didn't have the budget to show decent fight scenes so they often cut away to make you think something happened that you don't even see. Occasionally they did show something real, but it wasn't very convincing. Nothing a few months of martial arts training can't do. The very beginning of the movie was confusing, with a lot of dialog based on ideas we know little to nothing about. I eventually caught on to the story, but the story wasn't very remarkable either. The typical moral of killing and revenge is bad, nothing particularly genius about it's execution. If it wasn't for the music and other certain effects, this could have easily have been mistaken for a mediocre classic Samurai film from the 50s or 60s. That much was interesting about it. The music added a rather unique and interesting twist to it, making the movie seem a bit cooler, and the action more fun. Samurai + rock music= cool. However, the music itself wasn't always so good, but overall average. Like I said before, if you've seen Samurai Champloo, there's almost no reason to watch this movie, although if you like one you may like the other. Champloo was just much better though.