For its genre, this film is actually pretty entertaining. While it's sufficiently peppered in sword-fighting and blood, there's a deeper human story here.
STORY: While this cannot compete with "Seven Samurai" for story, and how its told, it's still much better than most violent film genres. Sadly, most Japanese samurai film are hard for me to relate to: 1) Aside from martial arts, I'm unfamiliar with the culture, 2) Feudal Japan was a long and strange time ago.
ACTING: Good acting, especially when keeping the human drama woven through. Again, it's a samurai film so character and relationship isn't usually the focus, but done reasonably well.
TEMPO: Well-paced, but it drags out at the end.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Overall it's fine. Nothing stands out as especially good or bad.
DIRECTING: The only criticism is a general one for this sub-genre of violent film, there should be : 1) Better clues as to why people are making the (big) decisions they do, 2) Develop other characters more since so much focus on one or two feeds boredom.
Overall a good film for its type, better than most, but not without issues.
STORY: While this cannot compete with "Seven Samurai" for story, and how its told, it's still much better than most violent film genres. Sadly, most Japanese samurai film are hard for me to relate to: 1) Aside from martial arts, I'm unfamiliar with the culture, 2) Feudal Japan was a long and strange time ago.
ACTING: Good acting, especially when keeping the human drama woven through. Again, it's a samurai film so character and relationship isn't usually the focus, but done reasonably well.
TEMPO: Well-paced, but it drags out at the end.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Overall it's fine. Nothing stands out as especially good or bad.
DIRECTING: The only criticism is a general one for this sub-genre of violent film, there should be : 1) Better clues as to why people are making the (big) decisions they do, 2) Develop other characters more since so much focus on one or two feeds boredom.
Overall a good film for its type, better than most, but not without issues.