Another Display of Directorial Ineptitude from the "Master"

Rating: 4/10 (21 February 2009)

Review in one sentence: This movie has zero energy. What follows is my fragmented, chronological lambasting of this "masterpiece."
The characters are cardboard cutouts with very little in terms of actual development. The opening scene begins with an argument between Hidetora and his three sons. It's almost like it assumes retroactive character maturity that was never established to begin with. It would have been nice to see some color in terms of personality, with each of these three key players given some screen time before the big fallout. In the seemingly endless line of miscalculations made on the part of our favorite "masterful" filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa ("AK") decides to provide *his* kind of "color"  vague one-liners. The "pranks" of the third son are referenced, but we get no actual development of his character (he does have one good moment later on). As for the other two sons, we don't even get AK's fuzzy caricatures. This viewer was left wholly indifferent by all of these sons, and their opaque motivations didn't help matters.
Even worse is the portrayal of the vitally important fifth character. In AK's infinite stupidity, he chooses to have the key puppetmaster (Lady Kaede) simply state that her father and brothers were murdered by Hidetora and that her mother committed suicide. There is ample opportunity for a flashback (or a lengthy opening historical segment) that actually fleshes out her character while allowing the viewer to experience her sorrows directly, but AK simply settles for dull monologue by a one-dimensional personality. At one point (early in the film), she's sitting down and simply states that she's happy to be living in her old residence again. It's an utterly robotic, emotionless, tedious series of statements that are boring as hell. Only AK could portray vengeance in a manner this dull.
We get the first battle and see a bunch of generic guys killing each other with no reason to care who actually wins. Some women that we don't know kill themselves along the way. There are some decent visuals though. Not bad, but not exactly scintillating.
After the battle we get some of the vintage overacting that shows up in most of AK's films. Hidetora goes crazy and frolics in the grasslands. When his two buddies show up to comfort him, he stares into space, opens his mouth as wide as a Pez dispenser, and has a hissy fit while his jester runs around singing. It's a total disaster of dramaticism. But that's not all. Hidetora's buddies carry him to some random shack, only to learn that the resident just so happens to be a dude that got his eyes gauged out by Hidetora years ago. Impractical coincidence alert! So what does this blind dude do to the man who handicapped him for life? Does he curse him? Does he lunge at him with a knife? No. He plays a sad flute song. Hidetora then promptly throws *himself* through a wall. Such a "masterful" filmmaker, AK is.
We go back to Lady Kaede, who magically goes from stoic carelessness to knife-wielding lunatic in 5 seconds flat, then takes another turn to hysterical crocodile tears only a few minutes later. Hey AK, that flashback would have been REALLY helpful. And do you know what else would have been helpful? A little relationship development between Kaede and the two sons to help the viewer in understanding exactly why these powerful men are wrapped around her little finger. You did have 160 minutes to use here. Why not use them properly for a change?
Over 90 minutes in and we finally get a well-written moment when a stone fox-head is returned to Lady Kaede. Then again, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Of course, AK immediately follows this brief success with another laughable attempt at manipulation. The blind dude and his sister (who has become a target for assassination) are escorted to safety. His sister spots an old castle and tells him about it. He asks where it is. Now, any thoughtful sister would give her blind brother some idea of where this castle is. Perhaps she could take his hand and point it in the right direction. Unfortunately, this is one of those "masterful" Akira Kurosawa movies, so she simply blurts out "Over there!" The blind dude turns to the right, turns to the left, and asks "Where?" Some sad music accompanies this hopelessly incompetent scene where AK so blatantly reminds the viewer that  yes  the blind dude is, in fact, BLIND! Good ole AK wanted the viewer to feel sorry for the blind dude, so he constructs this ridiculous scene to pile it on. I laughed. The direction here is so terribly amateurish that only fanboys could possibly deny AK's clumsy incompetence.
Hidetora gets amnesia and babbles senselessly. Stuff like, "Who am I?" and "I'm lost." "Such is the human condition", replies the jester. Give me a break. In a truly hilarious moment, the jester tells Hidetora to simply jump off a cliff if he's so disturbed about everything. Hidetora promptly jumps off a cliff. I laughed. Later on, Hidetora suddenly remembers that he has three sons. I'm serious.
We get the final battle, which is pathetic. First of all, the blue samurai army somehow gets their hands on some semi-automatic rifles. What on earth are semi-automatic rifles doing in this period piece? Next, the editing is atrocious. The sequence is so badly cut up that one wonders if a young Paul Greengrass was hired as the action director. Third, the battle strategies suck. The red army rides around in circles while the blue army shoots them down. Not good.
AK finishes things off with his patented overdramaticism. Hidetora even goes so far as to say  out loud, no less  "Things are getting dark." Wow. Just wow.