lateen

Pretty drawn out and slow. There were lots of scenes that really dragged. The fight scenes were just OK for 1970, but the last one was good.

For a wuxia movie you’ve gotta have people jumping really high. This movie solves that problem by cutting to a performer doing flips off the ground. But it was done in a very drastic way that didn’t feel like it had much lead-up.

I remember seeing reviews for this movie that described it as ‘dreamy’. Which, like… huh? To me something being dreamy is when characters in a story just go along with whatever is happening to them, regardless if it makes sense. Which doesn’t happen at all. Aesthetically this also didn’t feel very ‘dreamy’ either. It doesn’t help that this is a /very/ common descriptor for movies, to the point of being overused. Maybe other peoples dreams are just really boring.

I might’ve liked the movie more if I learned more about Buddhism, which this movie clearly has lots of themes of.

Each film feels pretty disconnected from one a other. This maybe makes sense considering how it would’ve been been when it released. Like maybe it was meant to be a shotgun blast of different animation for eager theater goers, with as much range as possible.

Labyrinth was easily the best, presenting all of its interesting ideas very plainly and clearly

Running Man felt like an excuse to have cool car exploding stuff

Cancellation order had a very “you’re ending it there?” kind of ending

I ended up procrastinating on writing the log for this movie which I think is telling. Usually after I watch a movie that I like I keep thinking about it the whole weekend, but with this I mostly forgot about it. Sure it was neat compositionally at times, but mostly? Eh. I feel like the other characters didn’t react strongly enough to the fact this dude literally has an atomic bomb. With some of the characters that makes sense, since they’re intended to be nonchalant about it. But the police REALLY did not seem as worried as they should be. The bomb guy also fucking with police during the 2nd Act was also dragging a bit.

I’m sure it says interesting things about Japan and its relationship with atomic bombs, but again. They way the movie went about it left me going. Eh.

It did start playing some Masayoshi Takanaka at one point so that’s cool.

This movie is very neat and tight visually. Looking back Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s other movies are also this way, but I haven’t really fully processed that until now. A lot of times directors will shift their visual styles, either slowly over time or instantly to fit the movie. But Kurosawa hasn’t so far with what I’ve seen. Everything is meticulously intentional.

The premise is laid out very early, and I was worried that the movie would take the usual approach with a story like this, but it didn’t. I guess I shouldn’t question the GOAT of all time.

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