Shogun’s Samurai

Year: 1978

Grade: B

Country: Japan

Director: Fukasaku

Review

i watched it for toshiro mifune and sonny chiba, unfortunately mifune doesn’t have much screen time, but chiba’s character makes up for it. the ending was the best part of this film and that’s in large part thanks to chiba’s performance and the solid writing. it’s not that long of a film, but like ‘once upon a time in china’ it feels like an epic because of the subject matter. in this film, too, the narrative drive is particularly fast for the first 30 minutes and there are so many different storylines and characters that the whole film feels bigger. plotwise it’s sort of a cross between macbeth and king lear, and since it’s a samurai film it’s really a cross between two kurosawa films – throne of blood and ran (even though ran came out two years later). solid samurai flick.