THE PLOT THUS FAR
Eat and Fight.
Upon returning from a pilgrimage across Japan, the warrior Toramaru arrives with tales of seven epic battles against Japan’s most legendary fighters. As Toramaru’s philosophy dictates that he ’know the enemy by eating his food, ’ each masterfully-choreographed fight is preceded by a helping of his prey’s favorite dish.
Designated successor to Master Gensai and leading proponent of the all-round martial-arts discipline, The Cosmic Way, Toramaru tells the tales of The Seven Deadly Battles as Master Gensai eagerly listens to the lavish and violent details of Toramaru’s adventures.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
“Bushido Man” feels a little too much like Zhang Yimou’s recent work. Always trying to go for national pride at the sake of accuracy. I get a “Heroes of the East” vibe at times, but this plays like a lesser Shaw Brothers entry. The violence feels too staged and almost like dancing. The swordplay like inspiration and it just feels like a really well rendered fight scene from a video game. I thought only Western movies were supposed to botch Asian tales this hard.
Modern Japanese tales seem to be echoing the recent trends in Asian historical epics. Tell short, but prolonged efforts about things that don’t matter. Stop at every chance to turn a big cinematic moment into a stand for patriotism. Whenever there is a chance to use jingoism, stop the narrative to do it. Hell, a lot of the narrative feels like a World War II era film from the United States. It’s weird how we want to label the Asian countries as so progressive when a lot of their mainstream cinema backpedals in that regard.
The Blu-Ray comes with a featurette as the only special feature. The A/V Quality supports a strong LPCM 2.0 track. However, the 1080p transfer shows a bit of shimmer. It appears to be more of a lower-end HD presentation. The English dubs are presented in a rather stiff 5.1 setup. Ultimately, I’d recommend a rental.
RELEASE DATE: 06/10/2014