13 Assassins

[Drunk Monk]

someone needs to find work for greg. some one other than me. he's got too much time on his hands. all that tv will make him go blind.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I also saw it on DVD but did not feel compelled to watch any of the extra scenes.

Maybe I should not have watched this when I was mid-afternoon sleepy. The first hour of gathering the gang seemed slow as molasses in winter time. I did like the baddy but there wasn't enough of him.

By the time we hit the major battle sequences at the end I was probably asleep for two minutes out of three. I kept waking up and going and who is that? I thought he was already dead. Then I would go back to sawing zzz's. And having everybody covered in mud and looking the same didn't help much.

If this is a great film, I guess I missed the parts that were part of that argument.

[Drunk Monk]

This reminds me of the time you said Garcia's guitar jams were too long

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Too soon?

[Drunk Monk]

Q: What did the deadhead say after he sobered up?
A: Wow, these guys really suck.

[Drunk Monk]

My wife gave me a DVD of Harakiri for Valentines, which is one of the many reasons why I love her.

I saw the ending of original Harakiri as a child in HI. It was all in Japanese, and I was blow away by it. It haunted me for years because I didn't know what that film was until maybe a decade later when I saw it at some Art rep house. It remains one of my all-time favs.

Netflix streaming had the original available for a few weeks. I put off watching it again (it's been years) until I could see this new one. Now Netflix has the new one, but not the original. Dammit.

As for the new one, it is the first Miike film that I found rather lacking. It's a good film, very beautiful, but Miike only makes a few subtle and inconsequential twists to the story. It doesn't go to that special Miike dark place at all. Some of the scenes seem almost exactly the same as the original. So in the end, Miike's new version feels totally unnecessary. I was quite disappointed.

Good sword fights tho. Of course, if you know the film already, you have to wait until the very end, and it might not be worth it. See the original, if you can.

[Drunk Monk]

The original is so good, so masterful. I caught it again on Hulu+. Miike really blew it with the remake on so many levels. Can't touch the original. He wasn't even close.

[cranefly]

I saw Harakiri (1960) back around 1974 on PBS. If I recall correctly, it was slow-moving and rather dark, with a gut-wrenching ending.
These days, every time I hear of it, I think of Mishima. Does Netflix carry any of his films? In particular, the three I list below. I saw the first two maybe three years ago on Netflix. I wasn't able to track down the third.

Afraid to Die (1960) -- Mishima plays a gangster (his demand to play the part was that he get to die in the end; oh, and that he get to wear a black leather jacket).

Patriotism (1966) -- film short (25 minutes?) which builds up to a graphic harakiri scene -- in many ways, a film walkthrough for his upcoming real-life doings.

Hitokiri (1969) -- Haven't seen this, but I believe he commits harakiri at the end.

[Drunk Monk]

The movie Mishima, not any of his films. Actually, I don't know if it has any of his films as the search engine for Hulu+ via AppleTV sux. I've been toying with re-watching Mishima as I remember really liking it for it's artsyness and I still think that was the best thing Philip Glass ever did.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Agree on the Philip Glass.

[cranefly]

DM loaned this to me. Mishima would have loved it, would’ve begged to be in it. The opening has a graphic depiction of seppuku, and the whole movie is full of samurai sacrificing themselves for a just cause. I was expecting something a bit more twisted from Miike. There are some moments, but mostly this is a very controlled production, very traditional.

In the extras, one finds Miike’s twistedness in the deleted scenes. Strange and funny, but yeah, they needed to be deleted.

I watched the interview with Miike. The young lady who interviewed him was clearly in awe of his auteur. She wanted to know how he managed to depict the opening seppuku scene with such visceral realness. Miike’s response: “Oh? How many seppukus have you witnessed so you know what they’re like?” The young lady was all embarrassed and they both laughed about it. Good fun kidding.

Overall, a fine polished traditional samurai tale, though I was a bit disappointed because of my expectations from Miike.

[Drunk Monk]

Several of my friends could not make it past the victim seen - the amputee with her tongue cut out. That was total Miike.

BTW, has anyone seen Miike's Waru? It's become a sport now. See <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67147-Waru">http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/sho ... 67147-Waru</a><!-- m -->.