8thSin I really liked the story in this movie, of mysterious beings that existed in the world and the night they spent before the showdown. However, it turned out to be just another action B-movie plagued by poor acting and story development.I should've known from the English opening credits that this movie would be a joke made for the foreign audience though. I can just see it now, these directors and producers discussing this film in a meeting. "Subtlety doesn't work for foreigners, let's have Oosawa Takao over-react to everything." "They like CG, let's add an unnecessary space scene to it." "They liked VERSUS, let's get Tak to appear in the end"...Katou Masaya's performance as Aragami was pretty impressive. He seemed to be really into the character and portrayed the mysterious character and its motive very well. Oosawa Takao though, I know is a much better actor from other films.This film's action wasn't bad, but nothing out of ordinary. It was clearly produced in a rush and little attention to details. The Aragami's speech, for example, ended sentences with "...Ja" in beginning of the movie, which is what barbaric men say in Japanese, but he practically stopped it altogether in the second half of the movie for no reason. Such abrupt change in speech pattern is a proof of poor production. A nice stab at the Dual Project Challenge, but ultimately a good script wasted.

Creedonjj Aragami the demon god of battle, is one of the most awe inspiring samurai films ever created. Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura Aragami is an action packed adventure and will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole way through.During Japans medieval period many wars were waged many men died; however one samurai is about to engage in a duel that could be the end of his existence or the beginning of a new life. When two samurai seeking refuge from a great battle stumble upon an old temple they had no idea what they were getting themselves into, days later one of the Samurai (Takao Osawa) awakes to find that his friend has died and he learns a dark secret about his host the eccentric Miyamoto Musashi (Masaya Kato).The cinematography for Aragami is unlike anything I have ever seen, the combination of dark lighting and splashes of vibrant color make this film one of the most interesting samurai movies in existence.I enjoyed this film very much and would recommend it to anyone that enjoys samurai movies another fun fact about this film is that it was filmed in 7 days as part of a challenge to create a feature length film with 1 setting in 7 days called the Duel project.

Joe This film was apparently one of two films set on the premise to be made about two people to fight in a single setting with only one to live on (along those lines anyhow). Markedly different to its peer, which was essentially about two girls in a cat fight in their modern apartment, this film is set in an old medieval temple where the host to an injured soldier turns out to be not the welcoming gentleman he at first seemed.This short film builds up to the battle scene between the host and the guest, with manga style movement, music and camera work. Nauseating at times, it is quite intriguing, and out-Tarantino's Quentin himself. Yet there is really no storyline, and the director could have done better if he didn't have any of the modern MTV music playing, but left it more Mediaeval.Overall, it is nothing special although not too bad either, but really there is little to talk about the hour or so of this. Good ideas, but a little less ambition could have done it a whole world of good. I guess though that the PS2 generation will lap it up more than the rest of us (has a very strong video game feel to it).

niz The director of VERSUS is back, and this time he gives us an old-school samurai sword-fighting flick. ARAGAMI was apparently made in 7 days as a challenge with a fellow director. Its minimalistic to the extreme: 3 actors, one big room as the only location, a plot structure as simple as it gets: dialogue - fight - dialogue - fight - dialogue - fight. And what fights! They're as hyper-kinetic, exciting and fun as the dialogue is bizarre & funny. ARAGAMI is 100& crowd-pleasing action. This one deserves to be a big international hit.