Change Your Image
Wibo81
Reviews
Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia (2006)
Style over Substance
With this movie, Zhimou brings us another epic martial arts movie. Yet another epic martial arts movie. Having seen "Hero" and "House of flying dagger" I find this one to be the most empty vessel of them all. There is plot, a lot of it, but why would you as a viewer care. There are relationships but they are hardly developed and get "killed" out of the movie. And then the martial arts. It's hard to see the choreography so it gets a little boring apart from the first scene. I'm hoping Yimou gets back to the scaled-down stories of his starting years, because all this glitter and gold has been done before with more substance behind it.
Irezumi ichidai (1965)
Slowly builds up to an amazing finale
As a fan of Suzuki's films I find this lesser known one to be his best. The story is told very traditionally and has some interesting facets. There is the unexpected love story and an uncommon setting. The love story in particular and the way it evolves is handled with the greatest of care and without any of the madness that trademarks some of the author's films. So Suzuki slowly builds an intrigue which although quite original is perfectly understandable. And then he boils down all of what he is notorious for, expressive colors, exquisite angles,... in the final act which you will want to watch over and over again. If you are scared away by the slow pacing of some Japanese film this one will reward you with this final act which I found to be one of the most memorable ever.