When one thinks of great Samurai movies, classic films like Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Samurai Rebellion, Harakiri (Seppuku), The Hidden Fortress, The Sword of Doom, etc, come to mind. In the last decade many new classics have been released - The Twilight Samurai, When the Last Sword Is Drawn, and The Hidden Blade, among them. In 1990, the film that may have helped revive the Samurai film in Japan was Ronin Gai. Ronin Gai featured a good cast that included the legendary Shintaro Katsu (Zatoichi) in his final role. The film was fairly well written and directed, and had some fine performances from the cast. The atmosphere that director Kazuo Kuroki created is almost perfect for the film. The sets and mood created give the film a genuine period look (unlike some of the lesser Samurai movies), and the cinematography is quite good. What holds the film back from being listed among the top tier of Samurai films that are named above is the script. It's not bad, but lacks a solid central hero. The drunked ronin who is played up as a potential hero has to be bribed to attempt to save the day. The more honorable ronin who is in love with the female lead is reluctant to stand up for himself (until the end), and Shintaro Katsu's character is a tough guy without any confidence in his abilities, so he relies on his wits to resolve (or just get out of) difficult or dangerous situations. The screenwriters make it difficult to get behind any of these characters and root for them (again, until the very end, and even that isn't handled as well as it could have been). The female characters in the movie come across much better, despite being prostitutes. The other issue (and it has been mentioned by others) is the action/swordfighting in the movie. The description sometimes used is, "Sloppy," and that is true. It stretches believability to think that the drunken ronin while falling down, slipping, tripping, and flailing away can successfully take on as many samurai as he does in the final sequence. While Kurosawa's influence on this film is clear, what it lacks is the disciplined, well prepared and choreographed swordfights that most of the best samurai movies have. None of these actors appear as athletic or coordinated as Toshiro Mifune or Tatsuya Nakadai, but that could have been minimized with greater preparation for the swordfight scenes. Even with all that said, however, Ronin Gai is a good movie. VERY good in spots, which earns it my 4 star rating. Shintaro Katsu gives a remarkable performance, and the rest of the cast is good at worst, and very good at best. As noted before, the mood created by director Kuroki created was very good and fits the story perfectly, so there are many, many positives to point to when discussing Ronin Gai. Ultimately, if you are just trying out Samurai films for the first time this isn't a good movie to get. It is a movie that converted fans of the genre should watch at least once, though.Read full review
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