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e same punishment but his concerns fall on deaf ears here we get to see asano s seppuku which is done openly in a garden another insult as he should be given some privacy here he composed a poem on his last day as we see the poem on the rice paper we also hear a singer singing the words the wind carries away the cherry blossoms yet i grieve more for the passing of spring we get more of the intrigue involved in the revenge as well oishi and other of the ronin are tailed by people on kira s side to see what they might do and they are attacked by them on occasion a woman rui is sent as a spy to watch oishi who is playing a drunk to allay suspicions she comes to realize that oishi is feigning as there is a nobility about him his drunkenness cannot hide but she comes to feel more sympathy for oishi and his cause than her boss and kira the attack on kira s castle lasts about 20 min of the film and is good action of course now so much of the battle scenes are choreographed fully and so this appears a bit rough but its roughness can be forgiven as probably being closer to what such a battle might look like this film ends immediately after the attack when the ronin parade through the streets of edo with kira s head in a sack to the cheers of the crowds they are stopped at one bridge and it looks like they may have to fight again but the official guarding the bridge explains why this path is blocked and offers another route out of town they are heading back to ako to lay the head on their lord s grave the film ends with them crossing the alternate bridge while heroic music plays this would lead you to think that having done their mission they are free to go that is not the case it does make for an heroic ending as they parade down the street leave a comment at long last two posted in uncategorized on 4 july 2016 by bdnm 47 ronin part ii 1942 dir kenji mizoguchi w chojuro kawarasaki oishi kazutoyo mimasu kira shotaro ichikawa horibe mieko takamine omino kanemon nakamura sukeimon kunitaro kawarazaki isogai when the japanese government put out the word they wanted a patriotic film to boost morale during wwii the task was given to kenji mizoguchi to make a film based on the story of the loyal 47 ronin of the genroku era mizoguchi rather than making an action film or at least a film similar to most war films that combine action of battles with a strong sense of camaraderie and some romance as the war is being fought ostensibly for the folks back home mizoguchi did not make that film there is camaraderie though we don t see it as concentrated as we might expect until near the end of part ii and there is some romance but there is little in the way of action this film sort of picks up where the last film left off i say sort of because the first film ended with a clear sense that the asano house would not be restored which gave oishi and the other 46 a green light to proceed in their revenge mission against kira had the asano house been restored under asano s brother the justification for revenge would be absent and would have muddied the waters when part ii begins oishi is still waiting to hear from the shogun about the status of asano s house i suppose it helps to replay part of the story for an audience who is at least a year away from part i or who may not have seen part i but i found it a bit jarring this part has no more action than part i in fact it may have less the big event of part ii is the attack on kira s castle and the capture of kira and his beheading which follows his failure to commit seppuku in this film the 47 get ready for their mission though we haven t seen much in the way of preparations e g we are told after the fact that isogai has been courting omino to get at the plans of kira s castle her father was the architect but we never see the courting or the plans and we only find out about the success of the mission when word comes that there has been an attack and kira has been beheaded in greek tragedy this would be enough the messenger s speech would give us lots of detail but in a movie we expect to see rather than simply hear and we don t get much information on the attack just that it was a success the film has its moments though in the final hour of the film the mission over the 47 await judgment from the shogun they fully expect that they will be ordered to commit hara kiri but they must wait for judgment they are not outlaws though they have broken the law in attacking kira they did so to avenge their lord but are quite willing to pay the price of a noble death to uphold the rule of law while they are waiting their host they are held in a local lord s castle as prisoner guests is not sure how to tell the samurai of their imminent death then a messenger comes with a beautiful bouquet of flowers from lady asano this lets the host and the samurai know that the verdict is in and they will be expected to commit hara kiri in the next few days the samurai are all quite happy to get the message and they are all suitably impressed by the beautiful way that lady asano told them they spend their last night entertaining each other with music and dance while oishi arranges the flowers sent by lady asano that scene was beautifully shot with gentle camera movements and cuts on the day their sentence will be carried out omino comes to ask to see isogai one last time such a meeting will allow her to be considered isogai s wife and not just a woman tricked by isogai the scene between the couple is also very well played mizoguchi was a master of woman s films and such an emotional farewell between a young couple was something he could do well we do not see the seppuku we see the screened area in the garden where each of the samurai goes in turn oishi last as he is the guy in charge and is supposed to see the sentence carried out we hear each name called out in turn strangely enough spoiler alert we do see one death we see omino s death she commits hara kiri in part to steel isogai to do likewise there is some concern as to whether he ll lose his never if he sees omino and when oishi hears his name called and he gets up to head to the garden the film ends the film was as low key and shot in middle to long shot just like part i i have to say though such shooting is not easy to watch we are trained through movies and tv even more for close ups and medium shots we are brought into the action mizoguchi keeps us at arms length and it may be that this is why the film was not successful in japan when it came out still i enjoyed watching the film much more than last time and enjoyed part ii quite a bit more than part i leave a comment 47 posted in uncategorized on 2 july 2016 by bdnm genroku chushingura aka 47 ronin part i 1941 dir kenji mizoguchi w kazutoyo mimasu lord kira youshizaburo arashi lord asano oichi chojokoka warasaki mitsubaburo ramon tokubee izeki seen on dvd it was in the spring of 1987 that i first saw this film i was at that time a teacher at university hs in urbana il part of the university of illinois the university of illinois had a tremendous collection of films in both film form 16 mm and videotape betamax many of these films were shown regularly at the university for one class or another so they were free and were open to all comers for a film geek like myself it was heaven this was before tcm and before i had cable or a vhs at this point i had not seen any mizoguchi film but had taken a film course on film theory from david desser one of the foremost authorities in the west on japanese cinema the class did not view any japanese films but one student asked prof desser who his favorite japanese filmmaker was he said that he went through stages and that kurosawa ozu and mizoguchi all held the 1 spot at one time or another i had seen plenty of kurosawa films and a few ozu films at that point but no mizoguchi films so when i had a chance finally to see a film by him i took it it was also my first time experiencing the story of the 47 ronin when i mentioned to a colleague who taught japanese at the hs that i was going to see 47 ronin she asked me which one i was taken by surprise and asked her how many are there and she said a few dozen at least i learned that this story has been done in various versions puppet play to start then kabuki then film and even opera the story has various names including chushingura loyalty the japanese title for this film and its 2nd part is genroku chushingura the loyalty demonstrated in the genroku era in the genroku era the emperors were weak and japan was ruled by military leaders called shoguns the historical event that serves as the basis of the fictionalized story of the 47 ronin takes place on 14 march 1701 during the shogunate of tsunayoshi the 5th tokugawa shogun the facts as they are presented in the various versions of the story are as follows lord asano a young lord is put in charge of protocol and arrangements for the visit of the shogun the former chamberlain lord kira is angry at having been replaced and expects asano to pay him with bribes to smooth things over kira knows the game and he s only willing to help if asano bribes him asano is a moral youngster and refuses to pay to play kira consequently gives him little advice or bad advice and the visit is something of a mess when things go south kira spends a fair amount of time gossipping about the inept young man who has replaced him often within earshot of asano himself unable to bear the insult asano attacks kira with drawn sword he manages to wound kira slightly before the two are separated and asano is put under arrest for drawing a weapon in the house where the shogun is staying a major no no kira has connections and as he didn t draw his weapon the blame for the incident is placed fully on asano s shoulders asano for his part indicates that the matter was due to anger over a personal slight from kira though asano is cleared of any attempt on the shogun this breach of etiquette that could get messy is grounds for asano to be commanded to commit seppuku which he does in addition his house is dissolved and the properties therewith are divided up among other lords asano s own bodyguard of samurai are now without a master and so are ronin no penalty is exacted against kira asano s former associates are all determined to get revenge they do not act right away but split up oishi asano s chamberlain appears to fall into drunkenness and whoring after a year as kira has let go some of his guard and no one expects a revenge attack the ronin under oishi decide to attack this film is quite a strange take on the story it covers the period from the attack through the decision to take action a year later as such there is very little action and as all is preliminary to the big show the actual attack on kira it doesn t make for much of a cinematic experience imagine if star wars was released the first film in two parts and the first part ended with luke s decision to leave with han and obi wan but before they ve had any real adventure had such a film been released with the promise that more was to come i m not sure there would have been a second film and when the first film was released only weeks before the attack on pearl harbor it was not well received by the audience though mizoguchi had not made the patriotic film that the government hoped and expected he would they felt that the story was important enough and mizoguchi was famous enough he was one of the top directors in japan at the time to finish the film with part ii part i was released though in 1941 and the cost of making it with the terrible box office resulted in the studio producing the film folding the second part with the same cast was made at shochiku studios the studio behind ozu the film is a real puzzler for people who don t know the story we get no backstory we don t know that kira hates asano and wants to make him look bad the film begins with kira speaking to another lord making fun of asano who apparently doesn t know proper protocol and etiquette and asano who s in the background breaking loose from the others and chargin kira without that backstory that attack makes no sense at all mizoguchi s audience knew the story but i didn t the first time i saw this film the film also is shot almost entirely in long or medium shot there are very few close ups the experience is a lot like watching a play from the back of the house that means that facial expressions and the like that give so much meaning in film are lost and without the camera nudging us in the right direction we re left to wonder what we re supposed to focus on it does lead to a sense of no one actor dominating the film and like in eisenstein s films the group rather than the individual is the performer there is one notable exception an old friend of oishi tokubee izeki comes to visit him soon after the crisis and the dissolution of the house izeki is a rather emotional figure and is introduced by oishi as an old friend who likes to come and argue from time to time in this case izeki wants oishi to take action and get revenge and he wants part of it when oishi declines he s waiting to hear what the other retainers have to say izeki is beside himself ultimately he cannot wait izeki played by mitsusaburo ramon is very animated and that animation comes across even in neutrally shot long shots ramon s performance brought to mind the manic performances of toshiro mifune in some of kurosawa s films but that sort of animation is otherwise lacking in the film the film s camera work which is often static sometimes gets mobile and when it does so it is a very smooth tracking we get there are pans of the crowd in the meeting of asano s retainers with oishi which don t call attention to themselves but which are quite beautiful i have to say that i found the stillness of the camera and direction frustrating but as i forced myself to sit through the film yet again this is probably my 4th time through part i i found little gems which were all the more precious and my overall view of the film has shot up quite a bit it s still frustrating but i know that part of my frustration is that i ve been taught to follow manic tracking shots and rapid cuts so that i can realize that my frustration is not mizoguchi s fault but partly my own as i cannot get past my own conditioning leave a comment are all computer genii jerks posted in uncategorized on 30 june 2016 by bdnm steve jobs 2006 dir danny boyle w michael fassbender steve jobs kate winslet joanna hoffman seth rogen steve wozniak jeff daniels john sculley seen on dvd i didn t know anything about steve jobs before this film and other than getting a sense that he was a jerk i m not sure i know much now of course biopics are dramas first and last and they are a bad source of historical or accurate biographical information what i found interesting in the film was that it was organized around three launches the launch in 1984 of the first macintosh computer the launch in...
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