Synopsis
Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering around a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.
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Cast
- Takeshi KitanoToshizo Hijikata
- Ryuhei MatsudaSozaburo Kano
- Tadanobu AsanoHyozo Tashiro
- Yoichi SaiIsami Kondo
- Shinji TakedaOkita Sōji
- Susumu TerajimaSpy
- Tomorowo TaguchiSamurai Tojiro Yuzawa
- Yoji TanakaSamurai executed by Kanô
- Kei SatōNarrator (voice)
- Jiro Sakagami
Recommendations
- 100
San Francisco Chronicle
A further, captivating extension of Oshima's marriage of the oblique and the erotic. - 90
Los Angeles Times
It takes a director with exceptional talent, skill and experience to explore ambiguity in all aspects of human nature and behavior, and Oshima has created a film of resilient, downright tensile strength that ends on a satisfyingly ironic note. - 90
L.A. Weekly
Above all, Oshima has fashioned a tale of men among men that feels familiar at first, then moves boldly into more enigmatic terrain. - 80
Village Voice
An action film at once baroque and austere, hypnotic and opaque. - 75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Ripe with homoeroticism, but also with what the director — who made the film after recovering from a stroke a few years back — calls "the scent of murder." - 75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
It's hard to figure exactly what the point of this movie is -- except maybe to expose the myth of samurai machismo. - 75
Christian Science Monitor
The movie's most striking assets are its lyrical visual style, which forms a silky counterpoint to the plot's turbulent emotions, and Beat Takeshi's smooth and expressive performance as a senior warrior. - 70
Variety
Walks the line between conviction and camp with a not entirely steady step.
