GOYOKIN (1969)

Set back in the day, Tatsuya Nakadai is a ronin who three years ago witnessed his fellow samurai clan buddies massacring a small fishing village in order to cover up a scheme concerning stolen gold bars.  Naively, he promises to not turn them in if they promise not to massacre any more villages!  Now, three years later, he not only hears that they are planning to do it again, but he meets a young woman who's family was slaughtered in the original massacre.  He sets out to stop the upcoming bloodshed by killing the fook out of everybody in his old clan.

GOYOKIN was an enjoyable enough samurai film, although I can't see myself ever wanting to watch it again.  Tatsuya Nakadai was fine, as were the supporting characters, but at 124 minutes the story just drug on for too long and the final showdown was less than spectacular.

A few entertaining action scenes, Ruriko Asaoka looking absolutely gorgeous, some nice photography, authentic looking sets and one of the most unexplained escapes in movie history: master samurai Tatsuya has been captured (by throwing a net on him...really?!) and then taken into the snow-covered forest, tied up with a ton of ropes around his arms/torso and hung from a tree.  Next the evil samurai inexplicably throws a small knife at him and it sticks in the rope above Tatsuya's head.  He then leaves.  So now Tatsuya begins wiggling around and this somehow makes the rope snap and drops him up to his shoulders(!!!) in a snow packed hole.  Snow is falling in on his head and Tatsuya pulls the rope and catches the little dart/knife thing in his mouth.  Next scene...Tatsuya is jumping out of a tree onto a bad guy!  What the Hell just happened??  He was buried up to his shoulders in snow while being completely bound with ropes and his only salvation was a little dart in his mouth!

Worth a watch for samurai movie fans.

RASHOMON (1950)

Opening in a fierce rainstorm we find two men (a woodcutter and a priest) taking shelter in the dilapidated ruins of a old city gate.  A third man (a commoner) runs in from the rain and sees that both men look very troubled and deep in thought.  They tell him of a rape and murder that happened a few days ago.  This is where RASHOMON makes movie history, because instead of just telling a straightforward story it tells the same story from multiple viewpoints.

The woodcutter and the priest tell the commoner about how earlier in court (yes, these stories themselves are told secondhand) the bandit, the wife, the police agent and the victim (who's story is told via a medium!) all told their versions of the story and we, the viewer, see them played out.  Added to this the priest and the woodcutter also saw some of what happened in person and they tell the commoner.  So in all we get six different people telling the story (or a portion of the story) and for all we know they could all be incorrect!

Added to this novel approach at storytelling we get some masterful cinematography by Kazuo (UGETSU, FLOATING WEEDS) Miyagawa, great acting by an impressive cast (I was especially blown away by Machiko Kyo who I thought was fantastic!), haunting music by Fumio (UGETSU, SEVEN SAMURAI) Hayasaka, great editing (by Kurosawa himself), a legendary script by Shinobu (SEVEN SAMURAI, HARAKIRI) Hashimoto and Akira Kurosawa and the best direction by Kurosawa up to this point in his career.

I doubt that younger audiences will care for it, but anybody interested in Cinema history, especially Japanese Cinema history should check it out.  Highly recommended.