Crazy Samurai Musashi (2020)
Director: Yuji Shimomura
Cast: Tak Sakaguchi, Kento Yamazaki, Masaaki Takarai, Akihiko Sai
A clan’s future hangs in the balance. A boy of noble birth waits by a temple. The dishonor of his father and the death of his brother must be avenged. The boy is merely bait, there to draw out the enemy who has brought shame upon the Yoshioka school of swordfighting. In the surrounding woods, hundreds of Yoshioka retainers lurk, weapons at the ready, in anticipation of the solitary swordsman’s arrival. This will not be a fair fight. Not fair at all. – Fantasia Festival
With only beginning and ending scenes with the actual plot, Crazy Samurai Musashi is mostly all about its 77 minute one take samurai fighting scene in between where Musashi faces an unfair amount of 400 mercenaries and other clan samurai who all want his dead. A few of these have a bit more dialogue which indicates some kind of deeper desire to win or more competent which isn’t always the case.
77 minutes of fighting is still a little much. It becomes a little flat since its easy to start seeing who will get hit on the head or get slashed elsewhere. It gives a lot of space to start nitpicking and seeing the little moments of people getting hit and then running off screen for example that feels like its a constant rinse and repeat cycle. It is 400 people to 1 person so its nothing that’s unexpected. Its also a lot of the same moves with some more elaborate fighting choreography here and there. However, credit where credit is due, the fight choreography does take the time to go from the lighter elements in the beginning to being more lethal as there’s more blood spill and such. It all escalates to this fight in the rain that is definitely one of the high points of the film. The score also changes throughout almost like the fights shifts from one phase to the next. The film also takes the time between these transitions for Musashi to be human and look for water thats conveniently strewn about in little corners of the house that he can find instantaneously.
It has its appeal at the beginning when the story starts off with a specific scene where Musashi shows up and then the one take starts and it seems a little funny to see people running off screen or being shielded to move off screen or whatnot. The one take techniques comes into play and its fun to watch how its executed in this sense but then fighting goes on for a long time and its wears down the pacing a lot. It might feel a little more gimmick than proper execution in this sense. The backstory is decent but the focus on the story is so little that there isn’t a whole lot of engagement with the characters to begin with.
Overall, Crazy Samurai Musashi might be only suitable for those with an incredible love for either the technical one take movies or samurai movies on general. For myself who isn’t quite that hardcore and more focused on more thorough story line, this one fell a little flat in the middle, even if the movie does give some changes like score and the pacing of the fight choreography. The one take and some of the fight scenes and even the filming and use of the setting and the score is really nice but there’s just something missing to make this more engaging.
Tranquil Dreams 