Sunday, January 2, 2011

Currently watching

Just finished watching Samurai Vendetta. A great film from 1959 staring two greats of modern Japanese acting: Raizo Ichikawa and Shintaro Katsu.

This film belongs to the large number of films that take the Chushingura story as it's background. I believe this is the third such film AnimEigo has released in the US. Unlike most chanbara (sword fight) films this one has actual samurai as main characters. This means many elements of samurai custom play an important, if uncomfortable, role in the story.

At first I thought I was watching something I had seen before, the duel sequence in the beginning threw me off. I now realize I have seen the same sequence at the beginning of another film I own. This is due to the duel story being based on actual events.

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