Samurai Fiction

Year: 1998
Genre: Samurai Movie
Directed: Hiroyuki Nakano
Stars: Morio Kazama, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Tomoyasu Hotei, Tamaki Ogawa, Mari Natsuki, Taketoshi Naito, Kei Tani, Fumiya Fujii, Naoyuki Fujii, Ken Ohsawa
Production: Peacedelic Studios

Do not be alarmed or adjust your screen; Samurai Fiction is meant to look this way. Samurai Fiction is supposed to look like it was violently ripped out of time and plunged into the late-nineties like the sudden reappearance of the fedora. Yes it feels silly, yes it looks silly but if you manage to see through all the off-kilter, jarringly anarchistic and sinfully stylistic liberties you'll find Samurai Fiction is...well it just is.

You talkin' to me bro?

The plot is set when samurai Kazamatsuri (Hotei) steals a precious sword from his former clan. Against the advice of his father (and basically everyone) the wide-eyed Inukai Heishiro (Fukikoshi) promises to take the sword back from the duplicitous Kazamatsuri. Along the way Inukai meets the elderly Hanbei Kurosawa (Kazama) and his daughter Koharu (Ogawa). After Heishiro has a brief skirmish with Kazamatsuri, the father-daughter pair decide to help him on his quest to recover the clan's sword.

If this all sounds like a seemingly flattering emulation of the work of Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi what on earth tipped you off? Was it the details of the plot, the art direction which expertly recreates the period, or was it the fact that characters in the film are literally named after the directors? There is something near-noble about the way director Hiroyuki Nakano attempts to mimic the intensity of the great samurai films of yore. Like the works of Guy Maddin, Samurai Fiction seems to come from a weird parallel universe where the visuals are constructionist but the way the story is told is purely contemporary. You can tell Nakano cut his teeth on Japanese TV and the works of early Quentin Tarantino to get where he is.

Then Tarantino ripped off of him right back.

Nakano also left his mark as a music video director for MTV Japan and boy can you tell. The largely black and white cinematography clashes with the film's ear-piercing score which features some electric-guitar laden rock music, downright annoying Japanese pop and, I kid you not, the elderly Morio Kazama playing "My Old Kentucky Home" on a musical saw. Nakano also sets up some head-cocking tableaux that for the life of me I can't tell if they're meant to homage 1980's pensive staring by a beach bonfire or lampooning such overused cliches of simmering cool-guy bravado. What's clear is Nakano has created an atonal echo chamber of discordant themes, homages, references and parodies.

The DVD/Bluray comes with a very indulgent and very Japanese making-of documentary called Samurai Non-Fiction. In it you can see producers and crew members look on with puzzlement and confusion while Nakano explains his goals for the film. "I've only recently seen some of the old movies. I like them but they could be better." In the background cinematographer Yujiro Yajima squirms uncomfortably as we cut to one of the producers quite frankly expressing his doubts that Nakano can pull off his crackpot, MTV-infused vision for samurai films in the new millennium.

Samurai Fiction, despite it's attempt to try something new, is not a great film. The story is un-engaging adding nothing as far as post-modern commentary or new twists and turns. To stop audiences from being lulled into a stupor, the film exposes itself with a topsy-turvy array of bold stylistic choices and odd blaring musical interludes that do nothing but draw attention to themselves. Garish, cartoony and stuck in time, Samurai Fiction might just be unique enough to garner a cult following. But for those who care for actual samurai fiction, or failing that a passing interest in decent movies, I wouldn't bother with Samurai Fiction.

Final Grade: F