Review of Gojoe: Spirit War Chronicle (2001) by Jim M — 14 Jul 2011

Taking a well known (in Japan) piece of folklore concerning the Warrior Monk Benkei and his lord the heir to the defeated Genji Clan Yoshitsune and recasting them as rivals, mixes in some philosophy and metaphysics and adding a feeling of apocalyptic doom this film is....interesting.

First I'll see I love the way it was filmed 9 out of 10 times location shooting is preferable to shooting in a studio IMHO. That said the sword fights never really did it for me, Yoshitsune and his companions cut threw the rival Heike Samurai like they weren't there, I honest to God spent half the movie wondering how the Genji could have been defeated (Now the same thing happens in Goemon but it didn't bother me, because Goemon very early on establishes itself as a comic book/fantasy well Gojoe keeps trying to stay grounded). Seriously Yoshitsune doesn't even break a sweat. There's also a crap ton of plot dealing with Buddhism and Japanese Folk Lore that I'm pretty sure went over my head. I feel another viewing is in order somewhere down the road, preferably after reading up on the Japanese Schools of Buddhism, right now I can only really give it 3 stars.