Yesterday, 11:21 PM
(This post was last modified: Yesterday, 11:46 PM by Drunk Monk.)
(09-08-2025, 12:20 PM)Drunk Monk Wrote: Samurai Fury
This is a fine modern chanbara movie. Originally titled Muromachi Burai (outsiders), it’s set in the Kanshō famine (1459-61) and is about a peasant uprising. It begins with desperate starving poor being abused by moneylending evil monks. A good hearted Ronin takes a street urchin under his wing, then pawns him off on a crazy hermit master for some crazy training sequences. His training partner is none other than high kick karate girl Rina Takeda, who steals all the scenes. That’s act one.
Act 2 has the ronin masterminding an insurrection where ronin & commoners combine their efforts to burn down the place in the palace where all the moneylending receipts and contracts are held. There’s some backstory intrigue with the ronin’s rival and his past courtesan. Act 1 & 2 are somewhat intertwined.
Act 3 is the siege. It’s a 2 1/4 hours and the last half hour is the siege of the castle in Kyoto. It’s a massive payout. The fight scenes are big battlefield chaos with dozens of swordspeeps, spear fighters and archers going at in with wild chaotic warfare. There’s a giant good guy who wields a 13 ft mace pole and tosses henchmen out like dirty laundry. Some complex duels, and the urchin student delivers some solid stuff with a metal tipped jo. He also does a crazy oner where the camera followed by circling wildly around the street fights the. Followed the hero up on the roof of more fighting. Not sure how it was done - there’s a few wire work assisted jumps so those must’ve been some kind of digital stitch because there’s no way he was harnessed all the way through. It’s a complicated clever choreo with crazy cinematography. i should go back for that and watch it again to figure out how it was done.
The action escalates nicely to a spectacular crescendo just as any good martial film should. There’s even plot and character development/backstory that’s satisfying, building the stakes.
Heartily D00M recommended.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
