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euanconn96
Reviews
Kozure Ôkami: Ko wo kashi ude kashi tsukamatsuru (1972)
Love it
I absolutely love samurai genre films especially Seven samurai, yojimbo, sanjuro, samurai rebellion, throne of blood, Azumi, kill bill, last samurai and many others. my temptations were high before this film and one thing for sure I was not let down at all in my opinion this has to be my second most favourite samurai film behind Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. the sword fight scenes are beyond iconic especially the moments of silence when the main character Itto Ogami is moving katana drawn whilst circles of enemy soldiers are standing who don't even stand a chance against a ex shogunate executioner. this movie also is filmed beautifully, the angles and the colours are amazing. when it comes to fight scenes no one can beat the Asians seriously the Japanese samurai films and the Chinese kung fu moves both have an eye for detail. I highly recommend this film to samurai movie/ sword fighting lovers, even people who absolutely adored the kill bill series. you will not regret it 10 out of 10
Shao Lin san shi liu fang (1978)
Gotta love the Shaw Brothers
San Te is a student that finds himself rallying behind his teacher in resistance to the Manchu government. When many of his friends and family die as a result of the government's ruthless tactics San Te tries to become a Shaolin monk in an attempt to learn Kung Fu in order to gain revenge on the Manchu officials.
36th Chamber is a brilliant martial arts film. It is artfully directed and edited and endlessly entertaining containing some of the most interesting "training scenes" that I have seen in a martial arts film, or any film for that matter. The fight choreography is almost completely flawless throughout and each fight seems to tell a story or have a purpose in the overall narrative. There isn't fighting for fightings sake. While that may sounds like a drawback it certainly isn't. Also, while seemingly a revenge flick 36th Chamber is more about the power of learning and teaching. The vast majority of the film contains some element of teaching or implementing teachings in one form or another.
The brilliance of the directing and editing is that one San Te starts learning to become a Shaolin monk he has to pass 35 Chambers to do so. Now obviously showing all 35 Chambers on film in their entirety would probably make for an exorbitantly long film here the first 6 or so chambers are focused on showing San Ta's tackling of the "easiest" of the chambers to increase his strength and dexterity. The later chambers are handled more quickly and the process of each is shown through other characters enduring the tests while San Te is shown to be mastering them. Seen in its entirety this entire section of film is quite brilliantly directed and edited. In addition, later when San Te exhibits the different things he has learned in his fights it is done without a "remember that?" type flash back like other films have done. The film assumes we are smart enough to remember or merely uses similar camera cuts and angles from the training sequences to aid in recall.