Along with Keishi Otomo and Takashi Miike, Shinsuke Sato completed the trio of Japanese directors who truly excel in action anime/manga adaptations, with his works in “Gantz”, “Library Wars”, “I am a Hero” etc speaking for themselves. “Kingdom 2: Far and Away”, which continues the adaptation of the homonymous manga by Yasuhisa Hara, highlights the fact in the most eloquent fashion as it currently streams on Netflix, just before the third part's release later this year.
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In a style that points more towards Chinese than Japanese epics (the original is actually based on the Warring States period), the sequel see the State of Qin, who is now governed by Eisei, after the events of the first movie, facing a new threat from a neighboring nation, the State of Wei. Headed by general Go Kei, a genius in military warfare,...
Click the image below to follow our Tribute to Netflix
In a style that points more towards Chinese than Japanese epics (the original is actually based on the Warring States period), the sequel see the State of Qin, who is now governed by Eisei, after the events of the first movie, facing a new threat from a neighboring nation, the State of Wei. Headed by general Go Kei, a genius in military warfare,...
- 8/21/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
In an interview I had with Dean Fujioka, director of “Pure Japanese” back in August 2022, he mentioned: “I started working in Japan about 10 years ago and as I spoke with the stunt crews on site, I learned that there are less opportunities for them to play an active part in recent years, which simply led me to think that we should make more action movies in Japan”. It seems that his wish gradually was heard, with a number of action movies coming out from Japan during the last few years, in a trend that actually seems to pick up, as Netflix seems particularly interested in streaming this type of movies. Granted, a number of the titles are rather low-budget and some of them are mediocre in terms of quality, and a number of cast and crew (Tak Sakaguchi and Yuji Shimomura in particular) tend to te the same, but considering...
- 8/10/2023
- by AMP Group
- AsianMoviePulse
For those unfamiliar with Tubi, they are a completely free streaming service which has an absolutely ridiculous selection of films, many of which offered in high quality high-definition transfers. For those not in the know, they are also one of the services that pays filmmakers the best and are very open to smaller budget films. They do present the films with ads, but that is a small price to pay for a great selection of fun films. Scrolling their offerings by genre is also the closest one can get to the video store experience of yesteryears. Here’s a list of five fun action movies on Tubi, kind of like a “Staff Suggestions” section at your local Mom & Pop video store.
Crackerjack (1994)
The first in a series of mid-range budget action films, although each movie had a different lead (with Judge Reinhold an unlikely action hero in the first sequel...
Crackerjack (1994)
The first in a series of mid-range budget action films, although each movie had a different lead (with Judge Reinhold an unlikely action hero in the first sequel...
- 6/10/2023
- by Emilie Black
- JoBlo.com
Another year, another bountiful crop of action filmmaking. The following article covers some of the best. Like with last year’s installment, the focus will be on action scenes—compact, heightened expressions of action filmmaking craft—rather than films as a whole, which means that some otherwise strong, action-adjacent pictures may be missing and a couple included films look fairly lackluster beyond their set pieces. For the sake of variety, I have limited myself to one scene per film, and all featured films made their official, non-festival, U.S. theatrical and/or streaming debut in 2021. The criterion of “official” excludes the Chinese direct-to-YouTube actioner One More Shot, which was removed after just a few days online. Whenever the film receives a more “legitimate” stateside debut, it will almost certainly be included in that year’s roundup. And now, to the action. The scenes have been organized into loose thematic...
- 1/6/2022
- MUBI
Despite the abundance of samurai films, Japan is not exactly famous for its martial arts movies, since the genre is not particularly popular in the country. Occasionally, though, such films do come out, with “Re:Born” and “Crazy Samurai Musashi” being among the most notable. Action choreographer turned director Kensuke Shinomura, presents one of the latest.
After her father has disappeared mysteriously, Rina is left with running his bar, “Hydra”, with Kenta, a waiter whom the female customers seem to like particularly, and Takashi, a mysterious middle-aged chef, who very rarely even speaks. Soon, however, both his connection to Rina’s past and to an organization of assassins is revealed, as Takashi has to undertake one last mission. Inevitably, Rina also gets tangled in the case.
After a brutal introduction and an atmosphere filled with 80’s aesthetics, “Hydra” changes pace completely, with the bar and the everyday life...
After her father has disappeared mysteriously, Rina is left with running his bar, “Hydra”, with Kenta, a waiter whom the female customers seem to like particularly, and Takashi, a mysterious middle-aged chef, who very rarely even speaks. Soon, however, both his connection to Rina’s past and to an organization of assassins is revealed, as Takashi has to undertake one last mission. Inevitably, Rina also gets tangled in the case.
After a brutal introduction and an atmosphere filled with 80’s aesthetics, “Hydra” changes pace completely, with the bar and the everyday life...
- 6/26/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
“The 1917 of action flicks” Screen Daily
“A frenetic, fast-paced samurai film” Nerdly
“The Raid style against all odds action flick” The Horrorcist
Synopsis: When a master samurai arrives to duel the disgraced Yoshioka dojo, he walks into an ambush. In the world’s first feature length, one-take action film sequence, Miyamoto Musashi fights for his life against 400 warriors, earning a place in history as the “Crazy Samurai Musashi”.
From director and famed action coordinator Yûji Shimomura, “Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1” is a thrilling slice of action cinema and a must-see for genre fans.
Dazzler Media presents Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1 on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital 5th July...
“A frenetic, fast-paced samurai film” Nerdly
“The Raid style against all odds action flick” The Horrorcist
Synopsis: When a master samurai arrives to duel the disgraced Yoshioka dojo, he walks into an ambush. In the world’s first feature length, one-take action film sequence, Miyamoto Musashi fights for his life against 400 warriors, earning a place in history as the “Crazy Samurai Musashi”.
From director and famed action coordinator Yûji Shimomura, “Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1” is a thrilling slice of action cinema and a must-see for genre fans.
Dazzler Media presents Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1 on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital 5th July...
- 6/5/2021
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
The lackluster reception of Yûji Shimomura’s Crazy Samurai Musashi at last year’s Fantasia Film Festival suggests that what sounded great on paper failed spectacularly in execution. Marketed with the tagline “400 vs. 1 in a single take,” the film commits to its premise with gusto: a brief intro and outro aside, the bulk of the runtime comprises a showdown between Japanese folk icon Miyamoto Musashi (Tak Sakaguchi) and an army of mercenaries and samurai, all filmed using a single unbroken shot. Save for a couple moments in which cuts may have been artfully masked, the one-take effect is, for better or worse, staunchly sustained for upwards of 70 (!) minutes (00:08:27-01:23:10 in the film). Given that narrative immersion tends to remain a priority even for the most action-oriented films, Crazy Samurai Musashi registers on some level as a grand failure, dissipating the “magic” of storytelling through a scarcity...
- 3/17/2021
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: David Fincher and Gary Oldman on the set of Mank (2020). David Fincher's Mank leads this year's nominations for the Academy Awards. A complete list of all nominations can be found here.Legendary actor Yaphet Kotto, best known for his charismatic presence in films like Alien, Blue Collar, and Live and Let Die has died.Spike Lee will be leading the 2021 Cannes Film Festival Jury, promising to return after the cancellation of last year's festival: "Book my flight now, my wife and I are coming!" After a months-long hiatus, Film Comment has announced its return, marked by a new weekly letter and two new episodes of the Film Comment podcast. Recommended VIEWINGAbove: Mark Rappaport's The Stendhal Syndrome or My Dinner with Turhan Bey. Today's the last day to watch two new essay films...
- 3/17/2021
- MUBI
Stars: Tak Sakaguchi, Kento Yamazaki, Masaaki Takarai, Akihiko Sai | Written by Sion Sono | Directed by Yuji Shimomura
When I was a kid I thought all martial arts movies were fight after fight after fight. We didn’t get many martial arts movies on TV in those days but there were plenty of shows like The Incredibly Strange Film Show, which featured clips from some of the wildest kung-fu flicks out there. It wasn’t until a few years later and I had started renting VHS tapes from my local video shop that I found out that Was true! Ok, Ok, so I now know it’s not true – many martial arts films have real plots, tell real stories, with character arcs and everything… but, you see, it seems I’d spent my youth renting a myriad of Godfrey Ho’s stitched-together ninja movies and multiple badly-edited, badly-dubbed movies on tape...
When I was a kid I thought all martial arts movies were fight after fight after fight. We didn’t get many martial arts movies on TV in those days but there were plenty of shows like The Incredibly Strange Film Show, which featured clips from some of the wildest kung-fu flicks out there. It wasn’t until a few years later and I had started renting VHS tapes from my local video shop that I found out that Was true! Ok, Ok, so I now know it’s not true – many martial arts films have real plots, tell real stories, with character arcs and everything… but, you see, it seems I’d spent my youth renting a myriad of Godfrey Ho’s stitched-together ninja movies and multiple badly-edited, badly-dubbed movies on tape...
- 3/2/2021
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
When it comes to action choreography, any long take sequence that lasts more than a few minutes is an achievement. Stunts and fights are risky. They can even be deadly. The longer the scene, the more chances of an accident. But a 77-minute one-er? That’s just crazy.
Talented filmmakers strut their stuff because the technical skill behind a good one-er demands next-level directorial and choreographic mastery. Setting up a long take scene is exponentially more challenging than a normal scene with cuts. For example, the short one-er that opens Lindsay Vonn’s new Amazon Prime reality game show series The Pack only runs a few minutes and is split by a cut in the middle, but it took 26 hours to prepare, film, and strike the sequence. Plus they had to shut down the 110 Freeway to film it.
The extensive long takes in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman and Sam Mendes’ 1917 have won international acclaim,...
Talented filmmakers strut their stuff because the technical skill behind a good one-er demands next-level directorial and choreographic mastery. Setting up a long take scene is exponentially more challenging than a normal scene with cuts. For example, the short one-er that opens Lindsay Vonn’s new Amazon Prime reality game show series The Pack only runs a few minutes and is split by a cut in the middle, but it took 26 hours to prepare, film, and strike the sequence. Plus they had to shut down the 110 Freeway to film it.
The extensive long takes in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman and Sam Mendes’ 1917 have won international acclaim,...
- 2/12/2021
- by Mike Cecchini
- Den of Geek
Bravura Single-Take Fight Sequence in ‘Crazy Samurai’ Stirs Excitement Nine Years After Being Filmed
“Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1,” a period swashbuckler starring Tak Sakaguchi (“Versus”) as the legendary warrior Miyamoto Musashi, is wowing fans outside Japan as it moves from the international festival circuit to streaming. In North America, it hits martial arts specialist Hi-yah! on Feb. 12, 2021 under the title “Crazy Samurai Musashi.”
Digital, Blu-ray, and DVD releases follow on March 2 from Well Go USA Entertainment.
The big excitement is the film’s 77-minute single-take swordfight sequence, directed by action veteran Shimomura Yuji, in which the sweat-stained Miyamoto cuts down 400 opponents, including members of a dojo he has disgraced by beating its samurai sensei (teacher) and his son, as well as hundreds of mercenaries.
Shot nine years ago and completed seven years ago, the film sat on a shelf until independent distributor Albatros released it on 50 screens in August 2020. At the time, single-named film blogger Ronin predicted that it would finish its run with just JPY3 million.
Digital, Blu-ray, and DVD releases follow on March 2 from Well Go USA Entertainment.
The big excitement is the film’s 77-minute single-take swordfight sequence, directed by action veteran Shimomura Yuji, in which the sweat-stained Miyamoto cuts down 400 opponents, including members of a dojo he has disgraced by beating its samurai sensei (teacher) and his son, as well as hundreds of mercenaries.
Shot nine years ago and completed seven years ago, the film sat on a shelf until independent distributor Albatros released it on 50 screens in August 2020. At the time, single-named film blogger Ronin predicted that it would finish its run with just JPY3 million.
- 1/15/2021
- by Mark Schilling
- Variety Film + TV
Black-and-white drama was showcased at the BFI London Film Festival.
US sales and distribution company Princ Films has acquired worldwide rights, excluding the US and Canada, to Czech director Bohdan Sláma’s drama Shadow Country, which it is introducing to buyers at AFM.
The black-and-white drama is set in a fictional village on the Czech-Austrian border and spans the 1930s to 1950s, inspired by true events of a genocide that occurred due to fallout between German citizens and Czechs who collaborated with the Nazi regime during the war.
It stars an ensemble cast of top acting Czech talent including Stanislav Majer,...
US sales and distribution company Princ Films has acquired worldwide rights, excluding the US and Canada, to Czech director Bohdan Sláma’s drama Shadow Country, which it is introducing to buyers at AFM.
The black-and-white drama is set in a fictional village on the Czech-Austrian border and spans the 1930s to 1950s, inspired by true events of a genocide that occurred due to fallout between German citizens and Czechs who collaborated with the Nazi regime during the war.
It stars an ensemble cast of top acting Czech talent including Stanislav Majer,...
- 11/9/2020
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
The film features a 77-minute, single-shot action sequence.
US sales firm Princ Films has picked up Yuji Shimomura’s martial arts action film Crazy Samurai Musashi for international sales, which it is launching at this week’s Toronto Film Festival.
Shimomura’s third feature debuted at Barcelona’s Asian Summer Film Festival in July, before a North American premiere at Fantasia Film Festival last month.
Well Go USA has acquired rights for the US and Canada, with My Theater Dd releasing the film in Japan.
It features a 77-minute single-shot action sequence, which represents 85% of the film’s 91-minute runtime.
US sales firm Princ Films has picked up Yuji Shimomura’s martial arts action film Crazy Samurai Musashi for international sales, which it is launching at this week’s Toronto Film Festival.
Shimomura’s third feature debuted at Barcelona’s Asian Summer Film Festival in July, before a North American premiere at Fantasia Film Festival last month.
Well Go USA has acquired rights for the US and Canada, with My Theater Dd releasing the film in Japan.
It features a 77-minute single-shot action sequence, which represents 85% of the film’s 91-minute runtime.
- 9/12/2020
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
“Crazy Samurai Musashi” is the newest project of the duo of director/choreographer Yuji Shimomura and action superstar Tak Sakaguchi after “Re:Born” and “Death Trance.” This time they are joined by Sion Sono who pens this creative retelling of Miyamoto Musashi’s most famous fight where instead of 60 enemies he has to fight almost tenfold more.
Crazy Samurai Musashi is Screening at Fantasia International Film Fest
Miyamoto Musashi (Tak Sakaguchi) has to fight hordes and hundreds of enemy samurai and hired guns and a few bigger bosses. He fights in the plains, in the forest, and in a small town and with each and every enemy onslaught, he gets a little more tired. Are his enemies ever going to finish?
Calling Yuji Shimomura’s newest feature an action film is the understatement of the year. It is rather a single action sequence blown out of proportion and stretched into eternity,...
Crazy Samurai Musashi is Screening at Fantasia International Film Fest
Miyamoto Musashi (Tak Sakaguchi) has to fight hordes and hundreds of enemy samurai and hired guns and a few bigger bosses. He fights in the plains, in the forest, and in a small town and with each and every enemy onslaught, he gets a little more tired. Are his enemies ever going to finish?
Calling Yuji Shimomura’s newest feature an action film is the understatement of the year. It is rather a single action sequence blown out of proportion and stretched into eternity,...
- 8/22/2020
- by martin
- AsianMoviePulse
Few things are as scary as real life these days, but for those seeking more refined thrills and chills, this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival continues to provide the best in “genre” entertainment. While the “genre” moniker is wide-ranging enough to stir up images of everything from slasher films to kung fu epics, the annual Canadian festival has consistently stretched the concept to embrace all sorts of off-beat features that go somehow beyond the norm of mainstream cinema.
This year’s lineup is no different, encompassing not just terrifying horror movies and wild martial arts action, but true stories about unique people, unexpected romantic dramas, even a careful examination of how a cute cartoon frog became a symbol of hate. If it’s weird or wacky, it just might land at Fantasia.
This year’s festival runs August 20 through September 2, though it is only available online to Canadian audiences.
This year’s lineup is no different, encompassing not just terrifying horror movies and wild martial arts action, but true stories about unique people, unexpected romantic dramas, even a careful examination of how a cute cartoon frog became a symbol of hate. If it’s weird or wacky, it just might land at Fantasia.
This year’s festival runs August 20 through September 2, though it is only available online to Canadian audiences.
- 8/19/2020
- by Kate Erbland, David Ehrlich and Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
The genre show goes on as Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival moves online for its 24th annual edition happening from August 20 to September 2, 2020. The best news for the host nation is that anyone in the country (all films save #Shakespearesshitstorm for the US will be geo-blocked to Canada) can experience the fun that only those able to travel to Montreal have in the past.
Each on-demand title will be available through their festival portal for $8 Cad and accessible during the course of the festival (with 30 hours to finish once you’ve pressed play). Attendance numbers will be capped similar to the capacity of the auditorium it would have screened at had an in-person event been possible and there will be select live screenings that must be watched during specified times as a communal experience.
Don’t think that the virtual nature of this installment will water down the product,...
Each on-demand title will be available through their festival portal for $8 Cad and accessible during the course of the festival (with 30 hours to finish once you’ve pressed play). Attendance numbers will be capped similar to the capacity of the auditorium it would have screened at had an in-person event been possible and there will be select live screenings that must be watched during specified times as a communal experience.
Don’t think that the virtual nature of this installment will water down the product,...
- 8/19/2020
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Stars: Tak Sakaguchi, Kento Yamazaki, Masaaki Takarai, Akihiko Sai | Written by Sion Sono | Directed by Yuji Shimomura
When I was a kid I thought all martial arts movies were fight after fight after fight. We didn’t get many martial arts movies on TV in those days but there were plenty of shows like The Incredibly Strange Film Show, which featured clips from some of the wildest kung-fu flicks out there. It wasn’t until a few years later and I had started renting VHS tapes from my local video shop that I found out that Was true! Ok, Ok, so I now know it’s not true – many martial arts films have real plots, tell real stories, with character arcs and everything… but, you see, it seems I’d spent my youth renting a myriad of Godfrey Ho’s stitched-together ninja movies and multiple badly-edited, badly-dubbed movies on tape...
When I was a kid I thought all martial arts movies were fight after fight after fight. We didn’t get many martial arts movies on TV in those days but there were plenty of shows like The Incredibly Strange Film Show, which featured clips from some of the wildest kung-fu flicks out there. It wasn’t until a few years later and I had started renting VHS tapes from my local video shop that I found out that Was true! Ok, Ok, so I now know it’s not true – many martial arts films have real plots, tell real stories, with character arcs and everything… but, you see, it seems I’d spent my youth renting a myriad of Godfrey Ho’s stitched-together ninja movies and multiple badly-edited, badly-dubbed movies on tape...
- 8/17/2020
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
There's a strong line-up at this year's Fantasia International Film Festival, making it difficult to narrow down a must-see list, but these are five films you won't want to miss. There's a little something here for every kind of genre fan, and even those who rarely venture outside the mainstream will find much to admire about them. This is fantastic filmmaking.
Crazy Samurai Musashi
Crazy Samurai Musashi
77 minutes, most of them a single take. One legendary samurai assassin. 588 foes. One of those feats of filmmaking almost as astonishing in its ambition as in its execution, this is a film that's hard to look away from even for the average viewer, but simply breathtaking for those with some experience of the craft involved. The sheer stamina displayed by Tak Sakaguchi in the title role is awesome to behold, never mind the fact that he manages to act at the same time.
Crazy Samurai Musashi
Crazy Samurai Musashi
77 minutes, most of them a single take. One legendary samurai assassin. 588 foes. One of those feats of filmmaking almost as astonishing in its ambition as in its execution, this is a film that's hard to look away from even for the average viewer, but simply breathtaking for those with some experience of the craft involved. The sheer stamina displayed by Tak Sakaguchi in the title role is awesome to behold, never mind the fact that he manages to act at the same time.
- 8/16/2020
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
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