Review of Samurai Rebellion (1967) by Jeff B — 16 Oct 2010

Wow! Awesome movie, though I'm not sure I really like the ending. (I prefer "Hollywood" endings where things end up happy for the characters I like.) Still it was a thoroughly engrossing film since Ichi entered the picture and her story became known and from there the tension just built and built and you didn't really know how it was going to end, you just knew that there'd be a lot of blood on the way there.

Mifune gets to play yet another character-type--the brow-beaten husband and father who never got to live his own life, so he feels almost awakened by his son's predicament--and he gets to have another duel with the man who played the villain from "Sanjuro", played by Tatsuya Nakadai.

Great all around and I'll have to check out more from (director) Masaki Kobayashi, since this was excellently paced, too. (Really reminded me of Kurosawa in the way he played with the camera and slowed down and sped up action to focus on the characters.

More so than any other director I've seen yet.).