Well done

ayoshaayosha

In description it is clearly defined that the film portrays the battle of historical figure Musashi with 588 opponent from a big family. The drama part lasts about 10 min and the fighting the remaining 76 min. Not much time to enter into character development, but that time was well used, that is, if you understand Japan society from that era. But if you expect to learn it here, tough sh..t, watch Kurosawa first.
The fight scenes are real enough, even if the variety of strikes is limited to about 10 from the Musashi and even less from the opponents. That is real as well, a family would have only a few really skilled swordsman, the rest being novices and trainees. But the power, speed and realistic execution is there, diminishing towards the end as the tiredness of fighting start to show. Real exhaustion, nothing acted, remember, one continuous take, one continuous battle, only few short brakes to drink some water. Compare that to modern samurai like warriors, UFC fighters are usually dead tired after 25 min fight with 4 breaks.
If you object to the fact that most attacks on Musashi were frontal, that is samurai way. No honour in backstabbing. Few attempted anyway...
The special effects are OK as well, blood spurts are small and reserved to wounds to major blood vessels, very realistic. No gore.
Swords were real enough, the fact that Musashi had to change swords often was real, they will get blunt and chipped in such a long and brutal fight. If the swords were aluminium and blunt rather than razor steel, so what.? It the film, no animals nor humans were to be harmed...
The real credit goes to the main actor and the one-long-take cameraman.
The change from a cocky Musashi at the beginning to tired desperate samurai fighting to stay alive at the end is well acted.
Few negative points:
After a while you start to recognise opponents that died already, over and over again. But that is the sacrifice you have to make, as a director, for one take filming with a limited number of dying warriors, some of them have to fight again.
Second negative goes to strategically placed water bottles and sharp swords. That detail comes from computer games, where you earn points and arms along the way. Not in real life, though.
But spitting on hands and the blade was as it should be, real 100%.

score 10/10

ayoshaayosha 12 November 2020

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6263759/