Skywalkr616

Holy shit!!! I actually cannot wait to watch Ran, if this is what Kurosawa is capable of with a Shakespeare. Toshirō Mifune's best performance in my opinion, between this and High and Low. Akira Kurosawa's ability to create tension and horror with such limited technology is astounding, everything with the spirit is astonishingly terrifying and amazing. Some of the best black and white photography I have ever laid my eyes upon, possibly the best cinematography I have seen from Kurosawa as of now. Obviously with it being an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth - which is definitely one of his best plays and probably my personal favourite - it was always going to have brilliant themes like corruption of power, ambition, paranoia and betrayal, but really the execution of it all from both the cast and Kurosawa is genuinely on another level. I have a slight bias towards the setting because Feudal Japan has always been one of the most interesting parts of history for me to look into, definitely over Medieval Britian/Scotland, so I preferred the choice to stick to the samurai genre with this movie, but that is completely personal. Overall I adored this movie and its going to be extremely hard to stay away from Ran until the end of the binge because its one of his later movies.

Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed this more than Yojimbo. While it is still a cool, fun, entertaining samurai action movie at heart like the first one, I found it to be sharper, funnier, cooler and more intriguing. That's not to say that I didn't love Yojimbo, I just happened to love it's sequel more. Mifune gives an incredibly strong performance here, I love how everyone around Sanjuro is just 'idiots' or 'fools' whenever they come up with any kind of plan or idea. To me this was basically Kurosawa looking at the success of Yojimbo and going I can do that again but I can do it way better. The tactical side of things with all the scheming that happens is really enjoyable. Yes, this isn't as deep as maybe Ikiru, High and Low or Seven Samurai, which is why I definitely still prefer those, this was just a very fun and comfortable watch which I can see has influenced many action movies today.

It immediately sucks you in to the chaos and tension that goes on within a Reform School, but it manages to amplify that as the day goes on. Yet to see a performance from Cillian that isn't frankly phenomenal, he has given it his all in every film I've seen him in. Some really interesting shots here, mildly experimental and it really ups the experience. I wanted to take a small break from Kurosawa, this was definitely the right movie, extremely different experience, but I'll get back to the binge tomorrow.

This wasn't as maybe deep thematically as the other Kurosawa films I watched, but it was extremely fun. Mifune is legendary in this, one of a kind film star we just don't get anymore. The score actually slaps, I might even go relisten to it soon I liked that much. The way Kurosawa shoots his movies is frankly incredible for black and white, he knows exactly how to create perfect spacing and it makes every shot feel dynamic. Some cool action, but it is very outdated, which is to be expected with a 60s movie. Overall, very fun, more comfortable than Kurosawa's others, and you can definitely see the impact it has had on newer action films.