Crazy Samurai Musashi (2020)

Crazy Samurai Musashi: Directed by Yûji Shimomura. With Tak Sakaguchi, Kento Yamazaki, Yôsuke Saitô, Ben Hiura. This film, taken around the time of “Out and Deluxe,” consists of the most famous battle of the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. In this 77-minute, one-scene, no-cut action sequence, Miyamoto (Tak Sakaguchi) defeats 588 enemies, one after the other. There is no room for error, no room for corny or unconvincing moves.

“There is very little effort made in setting up how or why the fight happened and so as a story the plot (i.e. the central conflict) is lacking. Man v. man, yes, but without setting it up thereu0026#39;s no real story here. Iu0026#39;m happy I bought it and watched it as encouraging innovation in chambara or jidai geki (definitely the former). As entertainment it lacks because it goes on long enough to spot some glaring issues easily ignored in shorter scenes. 1) the shortest distance between two points is a line. From the middle stance, one is always threatening the throat strike as the most efficient killing blow but he never does it. I get it for safetyu0026#39;s sake but after so much coverage it becomes more obvious. 2) no one who charges from the high stance has any actual intent to connect the downward swing. You can tell because heu0026#39;s easily able to connect a slice to the midriff (should be a u0026quot;menu0026quot; attack probably) before the downswing ever happens. He does this without needing to step forward or do anything to throw off their timing. 3) no coordination from the attackers. The very few times they attack simultaneously, itu0026#39;s high so both blows can be blocked with the same block. The only way they could have won would be such simultaneous attacks but from different angles u0026amp; directions. I take issue with those who say no blood gets on his blade because itu0026#39;s manifestly inaccurate. I agree with those who say that the few extras in the exact same outfits u0026amp; hairpieces is something easily perceived after so many minutes of coverage.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThings that still impress me 1) the actoru0026#39;s physical stamina. Even if the u0026quot;swordu0026quot; is light wood, it has to be heavy enough to receive a lot of blows without visually bending or distorting. The actor holds that thing up an impressive length of time. We used to do an exercise in my Okinawan style where we would hold our arms parallel to the ground for as long as we could and it was never long. We just couldnu0026#39;t do it. 2) the preparation of the character for the battle in advance. He knows heu0026#39;ll need extra swords u0026amp; water, so he set them up in advance. Iu0026#39;d like to circle back to the actoru0026#39;s stamina here because until close to the end he drinks very little of the water, preferring to rinse his mouth u0026amp; his u0026quot;blade.u0026quot; Heu0026#39;s obviously sweating for real u0026amp; doing a lot off physical activity so again, impressive. 3) the fight scene at the end.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe last bit of criticism I have wasnu0026#39;t mentioned yet, and that is not letting us see the last opponent defeated. After making us sit through all that attacking without even giving us the emotional satisfaction of completion felt like a deliberate waste of our time. If they were going to cut away, why not edit? Why not show the ending after spending so much time setting it up.”