Three Outlaw Samurai

Well, the Internet has finally failed me. I just can't find a certain piece of information about something that I figured would be readily available. Okay, sorta. For quite awhile, 1964's Three Outlaw Samurai sat on my Netflix queue -- the saved portion -- as I waited for the new Criterion Collection DVD to become available. I'd read this 1964 samurai movie was a prequel to a highly successful Japanese TV series that ran for six seasons. Now that said....I can find very little about the show. As for the movie....READ ON!!!

A wandering ronin without a master or a job, a samurai Sakon Shiba (Tetsuro Tanba) notices a commotion out away from the road at a small, run-down mill. Naturally curious, Shiba investigates, finding three dirt-poor peasants inside, and they've kidnapped the daughter of the local magistrate, a particularly brutal man. Their goal of the kidnapping is simple, their village having come up with a petition that makes demands on how the village should be treated. Shiba decides to set up shop in the mill and see what comes of it. The magistrate is expecting a visit from the powerful Lord in the district and wants nothing to go wrong. He sends waves of samurais and hired killers at the mill and village to wipe out his opposition. Shiba finds out he may not be alone in his fight and curiosity as two other samurais, Sakura (Isamu Nagato) and Kikyo (Mikijiro Hira), deciding whether to join the fight and on which side.

I like samurais. There, I could end the review with that simple statement, but I won't. It's easy to compare samurais to wild west gunslingers, both living by their own code. Sure, that's somewhat idealized thanks to movies and pop culture, but it's there. These were men who drifted along -- in the case of samurais at least -- roving the roads, sworn to help and do good things. Cool premise, huh? I typically think so. Director Hideo Gosha turns in a stylish, interesting, if flawed story that I liked, but I had some issues with it. It's good, worth recommending, especially for samurai movie fans, but there's also some serious issues.

Not surprisingly, I thought the strongest part of 'Samurai' was....well, the samurai. The concept of the samurai is what works, including an at-times heavy-handed message. It's the variety here. Tanba's Shiba is the main focus, a curious, loyal man of his word who tries to do the right thing. When we meet him stumbling into the kidnapping, we're not quite sure of his motivations. Does he hope to intercede? Will he side with the peasants? Has he made his decision or does he just linger out of curiosity? We find out his answer eventually, but the mystery works. The other two outlaw samurais are similarly interesting but for different reasons. Nagato as Sakura is the scene-stealer, a down on his luck ronin who we meet being released from a jail cell. He's hit a rough patch, looks generally disheveled, but through it all, he wants to do what's right. Hira's Kikyo is the most underused, a samurai working for the corrupt, powerful lord, a samurai finally pushed too far.

A tweak on the men-on-a-mission movie, I thought this was going to be a movie about three outlaw samurai (You know, with the title and all). I didn't realize this was a prequel to the TV series -- that I can't find information about -- so that obviously affects how things go. 'Samurai' simply takes too long in uniting the three outlaws. They're not actually brought together until the last 10 minutes of a 93-minute movie. Gosha's movie does a good job presenting the three characters as individuals and not a collective group. Interesting, fascinating characters, very capable with their own principles and motivations, but I wish there was more of them. This is a movie with a lot of characters, a lot of twists, and things get fairly jumbled once the ball gets rolling.

That becomes my biggest issue. The characters are cool, the action scenes are stylish and surprisingly graphic and unceremonious, and the black and white cinematography adds to that very visual style. Beyond those three main characters though, I struggle to identity other people worth mentioning. The evil Lord is very evil. It seemed there was about 9 different female characters, all interested in one of the samurai, or not, or a peasant, and I lost track of what was going on. I struggled to keep up, simple as that. Some of that I can no doubt attest to my lack of familiarity with the Japanese cast. Characters seem to flit in and out of the story. The overarching message is pretty cool in terms of how dark it is. The Japanese Lord consistently breaks his word, betraying anyone in his way, anyone who will stop him from reaching the power he needs and wants. Lots of potential, an okay end result for me.

Three Outlaw Samurai (1964): ** 1/2 /****

47 Ronin

Like any film genre, the samurai genre played itself out in the 1970s after wave of wave of flicks hit the screen. The genre had its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, directors like Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Gosha, Masaki Kobayashi and Kihachi Okamoto putting the samurai on the popular culture map. Damn the 1970s, a decade that helped kill the western too! So now in 2014, it's cool to see new takes on familiar stories from a genre that was once hugely popular, like 2013's 47 Ronin.

An outcast living in feudal Japan, Kai (Keanu Reeves) has spent his life as an outsider. His parents are unknown with very little known about how he grew up or even where he grew up. Now a grown man, he lives on the land of Lord Asano (Min Tanaka), doing odd jobs and trying his best to stay away from trouble. Kai becomes an accomplished fighter and swordsman, but as an outsider, he can never become a true samurai. When Asano is betrayed by a rival lord with high aspirations, Lord Kira (Tadanobu Asano), Kai is sold into slavery, finding a living of sorts as a gladiator forced to fight to the death. A full year goes by when Kai is approached and rescued by Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada), Asano's former samurai commander, with an offer. If Kai joins Oishi and his other banished samurai, they can work together to take down Kira. Their chances are slim though, death a likely ending for anyone who dares challenge Kira and his immense army.

There's a simple reason I've always liked samurai movies. They remind me of westerns in a lot of ways, the only real problem being that it can be difficult to track them down in the U.S., on DVD, whatever. Samurais and ronins (disgraced samurais who roam the country on their own) are a Japanese equivalent of wild west gunslingers. Even Kurosawa's Seven Samurai was adapted into one of my favorite movies, the American western The Magnificent Seven. When handled correctly, these can be great characters. They live, work and -- for the most part -- operate on their own. They decide if they will be good or bad, to help or harm. As presented in films, the samurais, ronins and gunslingers live by a code, one that revolves around honor, loyalty and sticking to your word. So how about a disgraced group of samurais trying to regain their honor? Yeah, count me in.

Director Carl Rinsch's film plays on that samurai code well, focusing on the unlikely partnership formed by Reeves' Kai and Sanada's Oishi. These are two different men with different backgrounds, but when it comes to who they are and what they believe in, they're really not so different. The two men have a past together, Oishi finding a knocked-out Kai in the woods as teenagers, how Kai got there completely unexplained (resolved later). A poor, outcast fighter and a lifelong-trained samurai with all the necessary bloodlines are an action movie Odd Couple, men from different backgrounds who have the same goals and same motivations. They're going to have to put their differences aside if they hope to achieve those goals. I liked both characters a lot, Reeves actually taking a backseat to Sanada. I don't think anyone will call Reeves a great actor, but as an action star, as a presence, he holds his own. As for Sanada, he's quite the presence too, a brooding, intense actor ready to exact some revenge.

One of the reasons I was psyched for this samurai flick with pretty obvious. I love movies like this that bring a group of disparate, different specialists together to accomplish some impossibly dangerous mission. So 47 Ronin? Yeah, that sounds right up my alley. Among the group of disgraced samurais, we've got Chikara (Jin Akanishi), Oishi's son inexperienced in fighting, Yasuno (Masayoshi Haneda), a veteran samurai who is alive because Kai saved him during a dangerous hunt, Hazama (Hiroshi Sogabe), Basho (Takato Yonemoto), the overweight, joking samurai, and Horibe (Shu Nakajima), the aging samurai and more than capable fighter. I would have liked some more development from Kai, Oishi and their group, but what's there is pretty good.

The rest of the cast is an interesting mix of reality and fantasy. As the villainous Lord Kira, Asano is underused and not quite developed enough, but he's one bad dude in what we do see. Adding a sense of the mystical and other-worldly, Rinko Kikuchi plays Mizuki, a witch who can take human and animal (including one surprising twist late) forms to move around undetected and do her dastardly deeds. Ko Shibasaki plays Mika, the young woman in love with Kai (an unnecessary subplot) going back to their teenage years, all the while knowing they can't be together. Familiar face Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa plays the harsh Shogun, forced to rule Japan with an iron fist to keep all the districts in place.

This isn't a classic movie, maybe not even a good movie, but I was entertained. It's made just under $100 million in theaters as I write this and was raked over the coals pretty good by critics. It is familiar, cliched, and the early goings take a little while to get going. Near the hour mark though, the momentum picks up the action finally reveals itself. An enjoyable, entertaining movie, nothing more, nothing less.

47 Ronin (2013): ** 1/2 /****