Kyô Samurai Musashi

Crazy Samurai Musashi is an experience not a movie. If you rate it like a movie you probably would find it just repetitive and not spectacular. What are you expectations? John Wick with a sword? No this is not it even if the corpse count is comparable. A Zatoichi movie? Kill Bill? No. After the first ten minutes you start being on the shoulder of Mushashi, understanding that every stroke of the sword is a duel per se, that the repetitive task of battling is life, that Musashi faced up with a grimace, ready to live or die but at its own pace, with its own rules. You see that he planned this journey and at the same time is ready to face the unknown, He's human, tired, but a war machine. He's THE samurai. Crazy Samurai Musashi. Not for every taste, but a Masterpiece. Great movie!

This is a Japanese movie? But calling it a movie is a stretch. Also apart from a exposition dump in the first 5 minutes there is about 10 lines so not that much Japanese in it. They spend over an hour with one samurai guy taking on an endless supply of stunt guys. Poor quality you could find better quality at a medieval fair show. To be fair they do slowly walk through a model Japanese village during it. It's boring what can I say how long does it take watching Japanese men struggling out of shot after being sliced then to immediately join the endless supply of grunts. It feels like a beat them up video game without any inputs and it's stuck in an endless cutscene which never ends.

Personally I enjoyed the movie, but to review this or recommend the movie, I would not.

I had no idea Tak was the leading actor, and I knew it would not disappoint. Though it let me down.

The opening of the movie felt like a real movie, the camera, cinematography, colour grading, blurring etc. As soon as someone gets killed and Musashi reveals himself, then the quality all of a sudden drops.

I was shocked that the movie did the action one take with no cuts, effects or cgi. However it got repetitive, which was the movie's downfall. Same moves, same attacks, same sequences. I can understand it would be hard to find 400 actors and 400 actors who can remember the choreography and cut time, so it's fine for me if the same actors where repeating.

The movie had little story, which was a downfall, we have no idea why Musashi is killing the clans or why they want to kill him (because he killed someone Sejuiro). The effects of the movie are actually quite good, blood is not over exaggerated, but believeable.

The one shot take was cool, but very boring. I was just surprised how Tak could go on and on, which was an impressive human feat, this should go on the Guinness Book of World Record. Music were good choice, there was lack of acting.

The ending fight scene felt better than all the 70mins 1shot take.

Would I recommend this movie? No.

But I would advise you to watch if you like Samurai, Tak or one shot takes.

Crazy Samurai Musashi (2020)

The original title is "Kyo Samurai Musashi". On Tubi, this is called "Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1". Tak Sakaguchi plays Miyamoto Musashi, Japan's most renowned swordsman, writer of "The Book of Five Rings". Musashi would travel around Japan challenging different schools of swordsmanship. Naturally, this Samurai would have many enemies seeking vengeance.

Like many of the old Samurai films, the samurai hero would fight against a challenging opponent, but eventually it got ridiculous and the hero would fight whole armies of swordsmen, all at once. However, the swordsmen would still come at him one at a time. This is no different in this film.

You would think that Musashi would be tripping over bloody corpses and severed heads The quick shots of blood is crated digitally and the wounded opponents politely stagger out of the scene. They needed to keep this PG-14. One thing about "Crazy Samurai" is that they gave the illusion of a single take which was kind of cool (ala Hitchcock's "Rope"), especially with a hand-held camera. It does have the effect of playing a first-person shooter game, following the protagonist to other scenes where other fighters are. Musashi even stops at various locations to drink, eat, and pick up newer swords. Was this taken from the PS5 game "Ghost of Tsushima", or perhaps from a Japanese game that we don't see here in the States.

This continuous shot is a nice gimmick but it might not be the kind of movie you need to see a second time.

Totally unrealistic.

95% of the actors who supposedly get killed either fall behind a tree/building, get concealed by a couple of other actors, or stumble out of the camera field of view. Only to reappear minutes later.

When the camera eventually pans around only 2-3 bodies are there instead of a pile of around 60+ corpses.

You end up watching the same repeated sequence over and over... one person at a time attacks, gets pommelled on the head, crawls off screen, and reappears a few minutes later.

I guess due to the lack of actors involved this was necessary, but this is child's playground fare in its execution. An army being represented by a dozen or so people constantly running around the cameraman is beyond acceptable.