Skip to main content

Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1 (2021) - Spend this time reading a book

"Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1" - plot summary: umm yeah [eyes roll askance] like, there isn't really a plot.

 

Some dude killed some other dude and his clan arranged a duel to avenge the death. Instead of a duel, they intend to ambush him with 400 samurai - before the movie started. So we sit around with 400 guys waiting on the one guy and dribble that exposition for about 8 minutes and then the title card (and there is a nice cgi butterfly which gets a call back in the last 5 minutes) - then we begin a 70+ minute long one-shot of a one-on-many sword battle through a landscape that reminded me of central Texas and a conveniently staged Japanese ghost town.

 

The 1-guy hacks the 400. He boinks a lot of them on the top of the head - I found this technique surprisingly effective. For variety, there is a very short exchange with a shirtless guy with a chain, some crude dialogue between two of the 400 about cowardice, and a young woman with a bundle of firewood walks through. Those interludes take up about 3 minutes total. It seems that 1-guy hid water and a cookie in the ghost town before the battle. On again off again moody music and a lot of grunting. Occasionally we zoom into his eyes (presumably so the extras can get reset). I didn't keep track, but it probably was at least 400 unique demonstrations of dramatic falling down. With cgi blood there is really no gore, and since they did not actually have 400 paid extras there are no bodies laying around.

 

This is a 90 minute movie - minutes 8 to 83 are a test of endurance (for the main character and the audience). Feel free to get up and get some water, popcorn or go the bathroom without pausing. You will not miss anything. I wish my video editing skills were decent - I could make a watchable 20 minute version. There are much better examples of this genre of you want recommendations


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) - it is a good deal better than the remakes

I got around to watching the original 1958 comedy caper film - the one that "Welcome to Collinwood" was pantomiming. "Big Deal on Madonna Street" is hilarious. It is 25 minutes longer than the remake and never once did I feel the need to check my watch. I even paused to go refill my water glass. There will be no problem telling who is who or how the story goes - it is well shot and characters are unique. The story is a simple and fun. Comparing the "BDoMS" and "WtC" - they are identical in terms of characters and scenes. "Big Deal on Madonna Street" street is terrific, and "WtC" is a slog. The biggest difference is seen in the dialog. In "Big Deal" the people just talk, like you might expect people to talk. They are funny, but not odd. The colloquialisms happen, but they aren't hard to see through. In "WtC", they are using a vernacular to make sure you are immersed deep in an Eastern European ethnic nei...

Lara Croft vs. Tony Stark - a comparison of Earth's mightiest defenders

I watched “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” (2001) recently. It is not nearly the deep exploration of the human psyche I remembered. Maybe that is why I had time to think that her story has a lot of similarities to the MCU Iron Man, just smashed into a single movie. There is not the same degree of character growth for Croft as for Stark, but there is an archetype here that stuck me. They are both: Athletic with distinctly styled dark brown hair Exceptionally smart & adventurous Utilize clever tools and gadgets Snarky / Funny / Patronizing to the people around Attended to by an attractive personal assistant Rich / Entitled / Play(boy/girl) / Philanthropist-ish Compelled to protect the world from BIG evil Driven by living up to a relationship with father In terms of contrasts: Laura Croft rides a motorcycle, listens to hip-hop and talks with a posh (and yet reed thin) English accent. Tony Stark was able to build [a hockey puck sized nuclear reactor] in a cave! With a box of scraps!  (Jef...

Running with the Devil (2019) - Ok folks, let's make a ¿something?

How do you take a 100 minute movie with Nick Cage, Larry Fishburne, Leslie Bibb, and Barry Pepper - as well as Cole Hauser, Adam Goldberg and Peter Facinelli - and somehow make an unwatchable stew of tones and over the top cliches? I think you give it to a TV director, TV writer, and TV editor. I could not actually finish it. Even for me, that is pretty bad.  It is a series of scenes that could have been part of a TV-series, but they weren’t. They were just the beats from a TV-series. Maybe it was put together by some people who read the wikipedia article for “Traffic” (2000) - then sketched a storyboard for a telenovela - then remembered they were making a movie and just cut it back down from there. It is like it has been sequentially translated into 2 different languages, each time by someone who wasn’t a native speaker. Set designs were thrifty, but not too cheap. Cinematography is somehow gray and lurid at the same time. If there was a highlight, it is the music. It was the onl...