Last night's movie: Hana, a period samurai film directed by Kore-eda. Really good. Surprising, maybe, if you know Kore-eda from After Life or Maborosi. It's set in the same post-war period as most samurai movie. You'd think with as many Zatoichi movies as I've seen I'd remember what that was called. The Edo Period, maybe? Anyway, as you might expect, it's much more of a character piece than a samurai flick. Very little swordplay. More (w/ spoilers) below the cut.
It always surprises me when I see a movie I like and then go and read reviews and find out that most people didn't. Altho in this case what I found is that the movie was almost universally ignored. It apparently didn't do great business in Japan and altho it got some good notices at the Toronto Film Festival, there are almost no reviews online. So I'm thinking it never got released in the US. But it's available on Netflix and I recommend it. Probably better if you've got some familiarity with the conventions of samurai movies but I don't think that'd wreck the movie for you if you didn't
I can sorta see why Hana wouldn't have been all that well received. Kore-eda is using the setting and trappings of a samurai movie to tell a story that questions, if not openly mocks, the samurai ideal. Plus, Sazo (the protagonist) is, like many of Kore-eda's characters, largely passive for much of the movie. One of the criticisms I would agree with is that there are perhaps a few too many storylines and characters. He's as interested in telling the stories of the residents of the row houses as he is in Sazo's quest for vengeance. Somewhat like the villagers in Seven Samurai except much more time is spent with them. One of my fave parts of the movie was the way it plays as a Rosencrantz & Guildenstern for the 47 Ronin. It's the coda to the movie, really, but it pays off a subplot that didn't seem to fit all that well earlier in the story.
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