tieman64 "When the Last Sword is Drawn" is an intermittently interesting samurai film by director Yojiro Takita. It stars Koichi Sato as Saito Hajime, a samurai who works for the Shinsengumi, essentially a "police force" for Japan's shogun (heriditary military governors). Working alongside Hajime is Yoshimura Kanichiro (Kiichi Nakai). Pragmatic, Kanichiro sees his job in economic terms; a means of earning cash. Hajime, in contrast, believes in old-fashioned notions of feudal loyalty. As Hajime increasingly believes these notions to be morally untenable, he gradually becomes disillusioned. Filled with self-loathing, and finding no value in social customs, relations and traditions, Hajime spends Takita's film courting death.Typical of "revisionist" samurai movies, "When the Last Sword is Drawn" is sceptical of Edo-era values; it portrays a world in transition, anticipates the fall of the Edo period and attempts to sketch the economic realities of 19th century Japan. Like many contemporary samurai movies, it is marred by sentimentality, unnecessary flashbacks and an aesthetic which mistakes "slowness" and "countercliches" for depth. Scored by Joe Hisaishi.6/10 - Interested in Samurai films? See Kurosawa's "Ran", Okamoto's "Samurai Assassin" and "Sword of Doom", "47 Ronin", "Kiru", Hiroshi Inagaki's "Samurai Trilogy", "Goyokin" (1969), "Chushingura" (1962), and the great Masaki Kobayashi's "Samurai Rebellion" and "Harakiri". See too Yamada's "Samurai Trilogy" ("Twilight Samurai", "The Hidden Blade" and "Love and Honor"). For mindless gore, seek "13 Assassins" and the "Lonewolf and Cub" series.

mmushrm Just finished watching this movie and have to say that it was excellent.The movie is set in the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Boshin war. It revolves around a poor samurai who joins the Shinsengumi to provide for his family.The opening of the movie is a little slow and confusing but persevere and you will be greatly rewarded. Doing a quick read up about the shinsengumi will ease the confusion. This movie has all the elements of jidaigeki movie; samurai, honour, swordfights, duty.The ending may be a tad sentimental, it did bring a tear to my eye, but it does end the movie right.Highly recommended.

ebiros2 This movie is based on Jiro Asada's novel. This was the first samural novel for Asada, and it was also turned into a TV drama in 2002. The movie won the Japanese Academy Award of 2004.The story is about period leading up to Meiji reform in Japan. Japan was split into two faction. One side was supporting the Shogunate, and the other the Emperor. The story is told by Hajime Saito (Hiroshi Sato) who found a picture of Kanichiro Yoshimura (Kiichi Nakai) at the doctors office. A war partner he fought together during Meiji reform. The doctor was related to Kanichiro in that he married his daughter. Story is told by both the doctor and Hajime about what they know about Kanichiro.Jiro Asada got the idea for writing this novel because his daughter started attending college in Morioka which used to be the territory of Nanbu clan where Kanichiro used to live.The story to me makes no sense at all. Kanichiro thought about his family enough to run away from his lord's clan to find a better paying job outside. Why would someone like that take a suicidal route to be on the losing side to the end despite the fact that Hajime and others told him not to ? I also don't understand why his son decided to join the war as well. He needed to look after the family after his father.To me the story seems to rely on plot Japanese call "Shini ochi" where story ends by the character dying. This is convenient, because it draw pity from the audience, and brings to light the moral perfection of the one who dies.The movie attempts to be like Yoji Yamada's series of samurai movies, but fails because the original story isn't as well formulated as Shuhei Fujisawa's novels, and director didn't do the caliber job as Yoji Yamada. On the defense of director Yojiro Takida who directed this movie, originally this movie was supposed to be directed by Shinji Soumai but due to his sudden demise, Takida was called in to fill his role. This might not have given Takida enough time to get fully prepared.The story makes this movie not as entertaining as it could be. But execution is pretty good, so it's worth watching for its production value.

taishotono Movies in general are never as tightly put together as a well read book, nor should they be because the images are what invoke our memories days later. Mibu Gishi Den is such a work and Kiichi Nakai, gives an award winning performance in the lead. You may remember him for his portrayal of Takeda Shingen in the year long NHK series. For this blue-blood actor, Nakai had to reach for this part, right down to the accent that brings home the country Nanbu Samurai. The beautiful northern Japan area that we get glimpses of in a few of the newer Japanese productions like Twilight Samurai. From Sendai to Karumai, the land and the women are fine enough to keep any combat engineer close to home. The old class system and the wrenching poverty that it kept in place rarely shows through in film. Today people can't relate to either one, here The Last Sword takes several looks at this through the friendships of the protagonist Yoshimura and his close "friend" the Taisho Ono who surely gets booted to the top of the class.Koichi Sato showed range as the reminiscent grandpa, as Best supporting actor his portrayal of Saito is grand enough to reprise in his work a year later in NHK's Shinsengumi (http://www.nhk.or.jp/taiga/) where he plays the antagonist co-leader Kamo Serizawa. Yuji Miyake has an "American Pie" father quality about him. Here he grows up to be the leader of the Morioka clan who supports the losing era. Actually there are no winners here in the era where the seeds of world globalization are planted. It is mostly American Civil war weapons that make the sword impotent. This movie captures a time when a different culture could be found over the next mountain. The real winners here, were the sweep it made at the Japanese Academy awards and the folks who see this film.