Movie review - "Ran" (1985) **** (warning: spoilers)

 I'll admit to being a phililstine and to drifting off occasionally, wishing there were more close ups and struggling to tell people apart (a few more close ups would've worked wonders). The beautiful images sometimes distance me - musical scores over battles. This was deliberate to avoid feeling of pain.

But it's certainy rich and I'm still thinking about it. Even if the main lord is a dill - a man who murdered and massacred his way to the top dividing his land into three; the elder two sons start fighting almost immediately, the "good" son is smart at war but dumb enough to be attached to his dumb dad.

Nice characters - third son, the jester (I guess), the second son's ethical general, the second son's nice wife, her blind brother. They all end up dead except the brother. (Well we don't see the second son or ethical general die we just assume).

Nasty characters - the lord, the elder two sons,  the wife of the eldest who shags the second one (easily the best character with the most brilliant scenes and death). They all die too.

I was confused who was the army at the end against the second son - the people who won I guess.  I assume neighbouring lord.

Movie review - "Runaway Train" (1985) ****

I have vivid memories of seeing this in the cinema which haven't left - the yelling and papers on fire at the prison, the boxing match, Eric Roberts incessant yet strangely comforting nattering, Jon Voight speaking through clenched teeth and a bloodied hand, the sense of freezing cold, the train operator who has his head shoved in the toilet.

It remains a powerful, arresting film - they didn't make many movies like this back then and they don't now. Rebecca de Morney is nearly unrecogniseable but adds warmth and human feeling as a third person on the train.

There's not actually that much action i.e. jumping around on a train. You can see how they keep the budget down - lots of scenes inside the caboose and inside the train HQ. The film maybe could have done with another sequence and maybe another baddy for them to overcome. John Ryan's arrival on the train feels a little anti climactic - Voight easily bests him.

Magnificent ending. Good editing. Great prison scenes - Eddie Bunker works on the script and also appears. It feels so real.

Still would've loved to have seen the Kurosawa version. 

Movie review - "The Warrior and the Sorceress" (1984) **1/2

David Carradine adds some badly needed star power to Roger Corman's Argentinian-shot sword and sorcery opuses. He's got that relaxed charisma down pat as well as fight skills and is entirely believable as a soldier of fortune on a distant planet/wherever who walks into a town dominated by two feuding gangs. He plays them off against each other until he falls in love with a girl, Maria Socas.

It's Yojimbo once more. It's not bad - not amazing. But Yojimbo gives is a solid structure - like it forces it to be smarter.

I really wish the support cast had been better. There's some decent sword fights and dodgy direction. The dancer with four breasts made me laugh. There's a lot of breasts - they should have been better integrated.

It has a charm. I wish the handling had been more vigorous. There's a few rapes, as per usual - these things are not fun to watch.

Movie review - "Throne of Blood" (1957) ****

Snazzy adaptations of Shakespeare have become a cliche because they are so handy as a way for directors to get a reputation ("it's Romeo and Juliet between penguins and polar bears!" "King Lear set in the Congo!). This is one that gives it a good name, a brooding, gripping Kurosawa adaptation of Macbeth.

It's set in a world of fog and rain and wind and harsh dirt ground and volcanic ash and creepy witches with face covered in all-white make up living in the forest. It's visually stunning with these samurais galloping around and pulling up in courtyards and massive gates, not to mention screen wipes and long shots of warriors with their spears at hats.

Toshiro's Mifune is perfect to play the intense Macbeth (the character has a different name - let's just call him Macbeth - uptight, lusting after power but scared of that lust. He's pretty nutty from the get-go but because it's Mifune he's got extra gas in the tank to go the Full Nut.

Isuzu Yamada is fully creepy as the seemingly ruthless, very closed and face-painted Lady Macbeth. It's a real jolt at the end when she loses her stuff.

Some incredible action, whether the final assault on the castle (the trees moving), Mifune's death via a thousand arrows, the murder sequences. Takashi Shimura is in it as the Macduff character but for some reason his presence didn't really register with me. (While Macduff should be a great role I struggle to remember any great Macduffs).

Movie review - "The Quiet Duel" (1949) **

Early Akira Kurosawa movie - the year before Rashomon - which was his second with Toshiro Mifune. It's not an action film, it's about syphilis - awesome, I know, right?

It's a medical melodrama which gets off to a terrific start with Mifune operating on soldiers in a makeshift surgery in 1944. There's some great Kurosawa compositions and atmosphere as Mifune cuts a finger and infects himself and you think "oh this is going to be good".

But once it gets back to Japan, the action movies to a sound stage and the film becomes less interesting. Mifune has dumped his fiancee but still desires her; he works for his dad; one of his nurses is a former crazy bitch who is still a bit crazy.

I kept waiting for the story to start - for him to have sex with the former crazy nurse and to infect her (she seems to want to), or to go mad and start doing weird things, or to sleep with his ex, or to seek revenge on the guy who infected him, or to try to set up a hospital or something and have to keep his condition a secret.

But it never does. Mifune is noble and tormented and Japanese, as is his fiancee. People are concerned about what's going on but there's no forward progression.

Noriko Sengoku (the recovering suicide person) has the second best role. Toshiro Mifune fans will be interested to see how he handles a non gangster/samurai part, almost as if Dr Kildare got syphillis (he does well). Takashia Shimura is dull as Mifune's dad, though he has the requisite gravitas. Miki Sanjo is dull as the dull fiancee.

This isn't much of a movie, mostly because of the story. I guess it was interesting to see Kurosawa and Mifune in a contemporary medical tale.

Movie review - "Rashomon" (1950) ***1/2

I finally got around to seeing this! Had heard of it for years of course - it's one of the very few movies whose title has become a noun, to mean contradictory accounts of the same story told by different people.

It's beautifully shot like all the other Kurosawa movies I've scene, full of striking compositions and intense acting from men, shell-shocked performances from the women (well, one woman).

It's quite a full on tale. The story concerns the murder of a samurai and the rape of his wife by a bandit.  The rape is never in doubt - even the bandit's version has him raping her. The bandit reckons he duelled honorably with the samurai - the wife says her husband killed himself. A woodcutter who saw it thinks the battle was all too nasty and ferocious (this fight scene - clumsy and all over the place and ending with the samurai begging for mercy and an exhausted bandit killing him - is one of the most believable on film). The samurai's ghost has a different version.

Sorry if this makes me seem like a philistine but the samurai's ghost feels like a cheat. And I wish the kid at the end of the film had been tied in with one of the other characters in the film in a stronger way.

But its powerful and the themes of "what is truth" interesting (although it is undercut because more weight feels given to the woodcutter's version of events). It looks fantastic and Toshiro Mifune is electric as the bandit.

Script review – “Last Man Standing” by Walter Hill (1995 draft)

It was a boring movie and it’s a boring script – Hill with the balls cut off. Written in regulation style so all we’ve got this is a dull story about a tough guy who goes into town. He’s a terrific gunman so he hangs around and plays each side off against each other to make money – but because this is Hollywood he gives the money away to help some prostitutes with hearts of gold, and a kindly little old man.

Kurosawa remake or not, it’s not interesting. I couldn’t help contrast this with Hill's script for Hard Times, which was a bit repetitive too but was also tough, tight and lean – yet still had some interesting characters (the drug addicted cut man, the smart-talking promoter, the main fighter). This one is flabby; the only really intriguing character is the sheriff who you think is completely corrupt and appalling but is only partly. Characters talk for too long - check out the monologue from the Texas Ranger - the action is repetitive (knock off one gangster, change sides then knock off another, change sides then another). The hero, Smith, is particularly dull - if he's such a super hero (there's never any threat to him in the action scenes) why doesn't he move to the city and make real money? There's no mystery or enigma. You also feel trapped stuck in that town for the length of the film.

Movie review - "The Magnificent Seven" (1960) ***1/2

Famous Western isn't quite as good as I remembered it - terrific central idea, of course, and that incredible cast and theme song, but far too many scenes aiming for significance with the mercenary characters sitting around going "gee it's hard to be a gunslinger". 

But still it remains mightly entertaining, full of conflict. Yul Brynner is an imposing lead, Steve McQueen is great, Charles Bronson steals every scene he's in (though they cheat by giving him scenes with children), James Coburn and Robert Vaughan very likeable. 

I was surprised seeing it again how much screen time was given to Horst Buchholz, a handsome German who never quite made it. This and The Bridge on the River Kwai kicked off the great "guys on a mission" action cycle of the 60s: The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, Dark of the Sun, etc

Early "Star Wars" = "The Hidden Fortress"

Just came across an original treatment for Star Wars on the net - interesting to read, especially to see what a rip off of Hidden Fortress it was, even down to Luke Skywalker being Toshiro Mifune.

Movie review - "The Hidden Fortress" (1958) *** 1/2

Famous Akira Kurosawa film that is best known today for being the inspiration of Star Wars. It is about two cowardly peasants who come across a general (Toshiro Mifune) escorting a princess through enemy territory to safety. George Lucas says in an interview on the DVD that he was interested in telling an adventure story from two lowly characters - hence R2D2 and C3PO. However, there is no Luke or Han Solo type - the general is one of those taciturn Japanese superheroes. It was an entertaining film, with some spectacular visual imagery that you get from Kurosawa. It goes for over two hours - a great deal of time is spent setting up the two heroes. The journey with the princess doesn't start until around an hour into the film.