Released: August 2020(Japan)
Director: Yuji Shimomura
Not Rated
Run Time: 92 Minutes
Distributor: Well Go USA(United States)
Cast:
Tak Sakaguchi: Musashi Miyamoto
Kento Yamazaki: Chusuke
When Akira Kurosawa released Seven Samurai back in 1954, he had no idea of the influence that this particular film would have on Eastern and Western cinema. This was a film that inspired many film-makers including George Lucas, who would go on to create Star Wars, which would change film-making forever. Since Seven Samurai, there’s been a lot of interest in Japanese culture including the samurai. While the truth about the samurai is…less than pretty, people can’t seem to stop romanticizing of an honorable warrior class following Bushido, or The Way of the Warrior, a code of conduct for Japanese warriors. In some comic books, some storylines are directly influenced by the samurai. The most famous of which was in the X-Men comics when Wolverine traveled to Japan. This would be the basis for the film, The Wolverine. But even before that movie, there’s been a resurgence of samurai movies over the last 20 years. The Last Samurai, featuring Tom Cruise, was based on the infamous samurai rebellion during the Meiji Restoration in the mid-19th century. We also got other outstanding films like 13 Assassins and Blade of the Immortal. Not all of the newer samurai movies were good, though. 47 Ronin which was based on an actual event, took the fantasy route instead of accurately portraying what had happened. It was not a good movie. That said, it didn’t disrespect the samurai, so there was that. Well, we got ourselves a new samurai movie, and this one is surprisingly unique: Crazy Samurai Musashi or Crazy Samurai: 400 Vs. 1 as it’s known internationally.
Normally, this is where I would describe the story of a film like this…but…there really isn’t one here. The movie follows a character named Musashi Miyamoto as he takes on a small army of samurai and mercenaries. We aren’t really given much of a motivation for why he’s slaughtering people left and right outside of the fact that he just wants to win. Apparently, the character is based on an actual historical figure in Japan whose record for undefeated battles with a sword is upwards of 60 or 70. That’s an impressive record for any swordsman, samurai or not. Because the writing and story are incredibly minimalistic to the point of non-existence, we aren’t really given much to latch on to or any real reason to care what happens to this guy. The advertising for Crazy Samurai boasts a 77-minute long action sequence that was done in one take. That’s what the movie is coasting on. Successful movies generally don’t want to rely on gimmicks as their main selling point. Ultimately, that’s kind of what this movie is…a gimmick. But it’s a hell of a gimmick.
The idea of a one-take shot is not particularly new, but it is notoriously difficult to pull off successfully. Some movies have claimed to be done in one shot like Rope. Ultimately, it’s bullshit, because that film had hidden cuts that made it seem like it was done in shot. Recently, the war movie 1917 did the same thing, but was more successful at it. The hidden cuts really were hidden and it looked like the whole movie was done in one take. That’s the result of brilliant editing. One-shot takes are difficult not just because of the planning, but the execution has to be EXACT. The moment something gets screwed up, they have to do it all over again. It’s not as difficult today because of digital technology, but it’s still a pain because of the amount of effort that has to go into getting it right. There have been a number of films over the past 20 years that featured one-shot takes, but these only lasted about 4 or so minutes. The most famous of which is the restaurant sequence from Tony Jaa’s The Protector was done in one take, but they ended up doing it ten times to get it right. By the end of the sequence you could tell that Jaa was running out of steam. It’s an exhausting gimmick to pull off. Crazy Samurai main battle is 77 minutes long and it’s done in one take. So, yeah, the marketing definitely delivers on that. Is it good, though? For the most part, yeah. It’s awesome to see. But it doesn’t always work.
The fights in this movie are outstanding. The choreography is incredible, but not everybody is going to like the fights in this main sequence. There’s a lot of repetition here. Tak Sakaguchi uses a lot of similar moves to block, slice, and kill his way to victory. In fact, I would describe this main fight sequence as a final level in a side-scrolling beat-em-up video-game. It plays out very much the same way. Tak’s character Musashi goes up against waves of mercenaries, gets a small break between waves, and eventually goes up against a mini-boss of sorts. I’m not kidding. There’s a very practical reason for that, though, but I’ll get to that in a moment. Tak uses short and direct blocks, slices and kicks against the mercs. While a lot of people might get irritated at that, I appreciate the simplicity of those moves, because the efficiency of these movements allows the actor and stunt-people to have more energy to get through this sequence. Those breaks between waves that I mentioned? Those are in place to give Tak and his character a moment to breathe and regain some of his energy with water bottles deliberately hidden throughout the village that he goes through. It’s really smart how they did that, because nobody on this planet could go 77 minutes straight of slicing, dicing and running. That’s also why we don’t see super-fancy moves through most of the movie. Tak Sakaguchi is a beast in this movie. You can tell that even though he’s exhausted, he still gives 150 percent of himself, even at the risk of personal injury.
As awesome as that 77-minute sequence is, it doesn’t always quite work. There are some issues that I noticed outside of the non-existent narrative. At the beginning of the sequence, you will be able to see the cameraman’s shadow from time to time. It’s pretty distracting, but to be fair, the cameraman does try his best to keep his shadow out of frame. Another issue is the level of violence. Yeah, the blood is digital, but you would expect some of the clothes to be damaged because these guys are getting sliced up. Also, towards the end of the sequence, you would expect Musashi to be leaving bodies all over the place, but the mercenaries are sliced and knocked out of frame, and you end up seeing them again…and again. Ultimately, though, I can forgive these issues because the movie is clearly low-budget and they didn’t have enough money to hire 400+ extras. They would’ve had to train some of them to wield a sword. Considering how Tak likes to work, having 500 extras constantly getting hit full-force wouldn’t work out so well, so having a smaller stunt-team of about 30 people is a lot more manageable.
Tak Sakaguchi has become one of my favorite martial arts actors ever since his breakout role in Ryuhei Kitamura’s Versus back in 2000. This guy started out as an underground street fighter and Kitamura recruited him to be the lead in Versus because of his talent for the martial arts. Tak gives 150 percent in everything he does, even if the film doesn’t end up being great. I would say he’s quickly become one of Japan’s best martial arts actors along-side Hiroyuki Sanada and Sonny Chiba. He’s that good. He’s absolutely fantastic as Masashi in Crazy Samurai. He has that intensity that makes you want to stay clear of him when he’s rampaging through an empty village. At the end of the day, the one-shot take is a gimmick, but this very well could be a game-changing gimmick. Tak Sakaguchi and the director just showed the world that a feature-length one-take film can be possible if it’s handled right. Does Crazy Samurai always work? Not always, but that’s due to the limitations of the budget, so in that regard, what we have here is an experimental, but awesome action flick that’s better than I was expecting it to be. The final fight of the film is also really good. Also, credit has to be given to the cameraman for being able to keep up with what was going on and trying to stay out of the way of the action. Would I put Crazy Samurai on the same level as Seven Samurai or even 13 Assassins? No, mostly because those movies have a real narrative and story-line tying the action sequences together. Crazy Samurai is all about that one-shot battle sequence. I can’t honestly say that Crazy Samurai is a great movie, overall, but what it attempted to accomplish is incredibly ambitious. I think it succeeded for the most part. If you’re looking for a straight-up action movie, you really can’t go wrong with this, but if you’re looking for something more than just an amazing one-shot take, this might not be the movie for you.
My Final Recommendation: 7.5/10