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Akira Kurosawa:
Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Throne of Blood, Ran
Masaki Kobayashi
Harakiri, Samurai Rebellion
Kihachi Okamoto
Sword of Doom, Kiru, Samurai Assassin
King Hu
A Touch of Zen
Hideo Gosha
Tenchu, The Wolves, Goyokin, Sword of the Beast
Kar-Wai Wong
Ashes of Time
Ang Lee
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Tsui Hark
Dao
Zhang Yimou
Hero
Kenji Misumi
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
Reviews
Dao (1995)
The standard for all martial arts films.
"The Blade" is the finest martial arts film I've seen. A gritty, dark actioner deriving in equal measures from it's wuxia (martial arts) roots and Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns. The climax includes some of the most compelling fight sequences I've seen on film.
It's a violent and savage yet beautifully shot and composed film. Hark infuses his film full of frenetic camera angles and stark atmoshpere to the point of being nightmarish. The story unfolds in flashback from the perspective of an old woman relating to two men who she imagined will fight for her. A revisionists approach not unlike Kar-wei Wong's "Ashes of Time" but without the surreal narrative.
Are art house films and martial arts films mutually exclusive? I use to think so, but not after seeing "Ashes of Time" and "The Blade".
Dai-bosatsu tôge (1966)
Okamoto's master stroke
Yes, this is a remake of Kenji Misumi's three part Daibosatsu tôge (1959).
But I doubt that Kihachi Okamoto intended to include all of the story in Misumi's version. And thus he chose to end it with a brilliant device, the freeze frame.
The abrupt ending is a masterful sword stroke from Okamoto because it brings a literal and figurative end to our movie's protagonist. Literally, because we know that Ryunosuke has met his end, and is about to be killed by attacking foes or the burning building. He doesn't need to show us what happens because we already know. And figuratively because it brings an immediate stop in movement, paralleling the abrupt ending of Ryunosuke's life.
But curiously it also immortalizes Ryunosuke, freezing him in time for all times. Why? Okamoto has shown that Ryunosuke deeds in life has caught up with him and he has gone insane, perhaps to escape the consequences. On a spiritual level, his psychopathic mind can live on, but only in it's insane state and not in the real world. In simple terms, the insane world and not the sane world is what's available to Ryunosuke.
Years later George Roy Hill would use this same device for the ending of Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid, but without Okamoto's haunting and staggering effect.