Goemon (2009)

Director:

Kazuaki Kiriya

Writers:

Kazuaki Kiriya (original story)
Kazuaki Kiriya (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

1 May 2009 (Japan)

Genre:

Action | Drama

Plot Keywords:

One Word Title | Character Name In Title

Cast

Yôsuke Eguchi	...	Goemon Ishikawa
Takao Ôsawa	...	Saizo Kirigakure
Ryoko Hirosue	...	Chacha Asai
Jun Kaname	...	Mitsunari Ishida
Gori	...	Sasuke Sarutobi
Mikijiro Hira	...	Rikyu Sen
Masatô Ibu	...	Ieyasu Tokugawa
Tetsuji Tamayama	...	Matahachi
Hashinosuké Nakamura	...	Nobunaga Oda
Eiji Okuda	...	Hideyoshi Toyotomi
Choi Hong Man	...	Gao
Susumu Terajima	...	Hanzo Hattori
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yoshikazu Ebisu
Ema Fujisawa
Arashi Fukasawa
Mayuko Fukuda
Gibson
Ryohei Hirota
Yûki Ishida
Kazuaki Kiriya	...	Mitsuhide Akechi
Fumiyo Kohinata
Lina
Ryô
Mayumi Sada
Eriko Satô
Ken Satô
Udo Suzuki
Erika Toda
Mayu Tsuruta

Runtime:

Japan:128 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

Australia:MA | South Korea:15

Filming Locations:

Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan

Company:

Goemon Partners

Soundtrack:

Rosa

being a casshern-fan ...

... i have to say, i was very disappointed.

i expected another beautiful and complex movie with philosophical aspects with less cgi shortcomings than casshern that warrants at least a rating of 9/10 but unfortunately, that is not what goemon delivers.

instead, what we have here is a mix of something like azumi and house of the flying daggers with mostly just superficial hints of casshern. goemon is basically yet another martial arts epic that adds only little to the genre.

usually, if a martial arts film just amuses me, i rate it 8/10, if it has incredible style too, 9/10 and 10/10... well, i have yet to see one with enough style AND depth for that. goemon does have positive aspects when it comes to that. characters and the overall story felt a little deeper to me than what usually goes on in such movies but it is still nowhere near casshern. i think one of the main reasons for that are the comical characters that are way overused for a movie that carries a serious atmosphere most of the time. and while i'm talking about the story - the movie should actually end after the second third. it takes an incredibly illogical twist there, where i was sitting up and asking myself if i have missed something to understand why the characters acted the way they did. but i doubt that i did...

aspects that were basically the same as in casshern was the way the narrative was constructed (flashbacks, details about things being revealed after we've already seen them and such) and a lot of visual choices (you can already see some of that in the trailer). but while the visuals worked pretty well for me in casshern (they still were the only reason i didn't rate it 10/10 though), they didn't in goemon. first of all, the incoherence between cg and non-cg material is far greater. i'm especially amazed that nobody told kiriya that realistic looking cg grass is really a bitch to create. every 3d artist who has ever dealed with grass knows that. and it really is the worst looking scene in the movie. another problem with the visuals is that when you're doing an innovative movie that's more about depth than action, you can get away with quite a few things. but when you produce a movie that has little to set it apart from productions like house of flying daggers, expectations are a lot higher.

another halfway-negative aspect for me was the score. it may have been fitting for this movie but still, i was hoping for more of the great sounds that made me buy my first Japanese cd and my first score cd ever.

to sum it up... if you maybe don't even know casshern and you expect an amusing martial arts epic you might be disappointed because of some sluggish cg work and might be annoyed with what happens at about two thirds of the movie but you will still get plenty of nice entertainment and a little more depth than usual. if you're a casshern-fan and hope for more greatness as you've learned to love from casshern... either adjust your expectations or don't watch it.