ryan12492 This film is everything that it promises to be, and in most cases it does a very good job. There is something familiar for all viewers, whether it be the "Fist Full of Dollars" references, or the "Django" references, or the Kurosawa inspired story. The script is weak at points, but it's a western, and writing a script for a crew that has one native English speaker (Quentin Tarantino) and having them pull it off as well as they did is a feat. I came out of the movie thinking that I could watch it again and like it. If you watched it and were disappointed, you probably watched it in the wrong mindset, it was a great ode to all men without names.

tomgillespie2002 This Japanese-Italian crossover is a homage to the great spaghetti westerns of the 1960's and 70's. The oh-so familiar plot is reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Yojimbo, later remade by Sergio Leone as a western with A Fistful Of Dollars. A brooding gunslinger arrives in a small town that has been torn apart and occupied by two warring clans - the reds and the whites. After advertising his expert gun skills up his arrival, he at first offers up his services to the highest bidder, but after realising the peril faced by the town's innocent natives, he decides that he can put his skills to better use and wage a war against the clans. All of this is seemingly told by a mysterious stranger played by Quentin Tarantino, who introduces the film at the beginning.After the truly cringe-worthy opening scene, in which the aforementioned Tarantino shows off his acting 'skills' and mows down a few faceless bad guys and talks tough, the film seems to pick up some pace. The opening is deliberately designed to look cartoonish, with plastic looking sets and over-the-top blood spraying. It just doesn't work and thankfully moves away from this style and takes on a more traditional method. For all it's trying, the film never leaves second gear. The familiar storyline doesn't offer anything I've not seen before, and the decision to have the Japanese actors speak in broken English with subtitles is an interesting idea I suppose, but just becomes slightly annoying and confusing. I would expect better from a director such as Takashi Miike, who made the excellent Audition and Ichi The Killer. I just pray he doesn't become another homage-loving filmmaker like Tarantino.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Falconeer ...and fails, on almost every level. I have been an avid fan of Miike for years, ever since I saw "Fudoh: A New Generation" in the mid-nineties. So it was particularly upsetting for me to witness this, his first try at "sell-out cinema." The evidence appears with the opening scenes, when a haggard "It-boy" Quentin Tarantino appears for a pointless cameo. Correct me if i am wrong, but Tarantino is supposed to be a Miike fan, not the other way around. After all, it was Tarantino who made a name for himself mimicking the style of guys like Takashi Miike, right? Anyway, Miike has all of his Japanese actors speaking English. why? Could it be because the targeted audience for this one won't or can't read subtitles? Slapstick comedy meets flashy violence and drama. That rarely works, and it doesn't here. The evidence of this being a film from the master are certainly there; some wonderful imagery and stylish, hallucinatory sets and some great, gratuitous violence as well. But this film doesn't know what it wants to be; it desperately wants to be cool, and to be a "hit" with the American crowd, but it is too avant-garde to be accepted by the mainstream crowd, and too dumb to be embraced by lovers of Japanese pink and samurai films, which are always beautiful, and quite serious. I think that this director is too twisted to make a mainstream film, and it is evident here; he couldn't resist going into obscure territory at times, with his characters acting insane with no explanation, and the extreme violence to women harken back to the pink films from the 70's. Make up your mind; what are you trying to create with this film? Maybe you tried to please everyone, and wound up pleasing no one?I must be losing my mind; i'm ranting to Takashi Miike and he's not even here.. All I can say is that I am disappointed and I hope that the creator of so many seminal art-house films goes back to making the kinds of films that he is known and loved for. Remember "Big Bang Love?" How does one go from that to... this?? And why are these artists so intent on being like Hollywood, an artless, tacky machine that died years ago? money isn't everything guys...

Gabriel Banks A strange movie, I must say. But before I go into the movie itself, I feel the need to talk about the case.That's why I actually bought this movie, originally. Because the case was so...pretty. And Quentin Tarantino's name on it sealed the deal for me. The cover design is so well done and beautiful and artistic and many other synonyms of those, which provides the perfect segue into the movie itself.It starts out with, of all people, Quentin Tarantino. The background is noticeably fake, a setting sun over the horizon painted onto a backdrop. I was a bit taken aback, at first, and I never really understood why, but I rolled with it. With the first words spoken, however, it became painfully apparent what this movies main problem would be.You see, despite the fact that almost all of the cast uses Japanese as their primary language (I haven't verified this, but it's pretty obvious), the filmmaker, Takashi Miike, shot the whole thing in English. Thankfully, there are subtitles, but the lack of understandable speech presents a great barrier. It's basically the story of two clans, the Heike, led by Kiyomori/Henry (Kōichi Satō), and the Genji, led by Yoshitsune (Yūsuke Iseya), that are battling over a town for a fabled treasure. A mysterious stranger (Hideaki Ito) rolls into town, much like Clint Eastwood in those old movies that we love oh-so-much. This is a beautifully done movie, with many breathtaking scenes, exciting, lovable characters (for the most part), and plenty of blood and gore. Oh, and a rape, so keep the kiddies away from this one.