Hideo Gosha's debut movie is a strange beast. It already shows his stylistic flourishes in surprising clarity, but still contains remnants of an older, more melodramatic and sentimental chambara style that stand a little uneasy next to the film's meanness and unrelenting drive.
Even I was a little set back by the astonishingly high quotient of sacrificing/sacrificed women. The gender politics of Japanese genre film have never been anything one could call progressive, but the number of women who have to die here to drive the plot and our male characters borders on the intolerable.
Which makes for very uncomfortable viewing.
Darling of the Day:
"Why are you on the peasants side?"
"No particular reason. I spent half an hour with them and now I feel solidarity."
Sunday, August 26, 2007
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