One of the Kurosawa's Best Jidai-geki

Rating: 10/10 (8 June 2008)

I have already watched this movie three times. The running time is really long: 2 hour 40 minutes, however, I am always mesmerized by the film and forget such long running time. Tatsuya Nakadai's strong presence as the protagonist, sharp eyes like a beast, and his act which follow to Kabuki draw my attention; moreover, the scenes of Japanese Samurais' wars are represented courageously and beautifully by the Kurosawa's grand directions. Furthermore, it is possible to say that Kurosawa represents his ideas about god and death. Especially, at the last scene, a Buddha picture falls off instead of Tsurumaru. I think that Kurosawa represents the same thing with what Tango says; Tsurumaru can "choose" his way, alive or death, after the scene, and the picture of Buddha does nothing to him and just fall down from the top of the wall. That is to say, it is possible to argue that Tsurumaru is the metaphor of people who could choose disturbance or peace, and the Buddha represents the useless gods that cannot save people as Tango says. By the way, as a Japanese speaker, I am disappointed at the English subtitle a little bit because it breaks the presence of the Kurosawa's script which expressed in Japanese sometimes. For example, "Old age is difficult (Aware, oitari)" Surely, the meaning of this line is correct and exactly; however, I think the English subtitle does not have the power of the words which represented in Japanese.