One of my all time favorites.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

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.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 also tell Nakano cut his teeth on Japanese TV and the works of early Quentin Tarantino to get where he is.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 clichés 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.

The title is of course an illusion to Quentin "Pulp Fiction" Tarantino, but the film only shares with Tarantino a decidedly "post-modern" sensibility: for instance geisha in medieval Japan sing American torch songs. Otherwise, the film has much more heart than Tarantino may actually be able to muster.The movie is actually about three samurai - a young man who's out for revenge; a ruthless ronin sword for hire; and an aging warrior in hiding, who regrets ever having used a sword to kill a man.Sounds like pretty heavy stuff; but director Hiroyuki Nakano ( who claims in interview that he wanted to make a "nice, peaceful film") adds touches of humor to almost every scene, as well as some amazingly beautiful cinematography. The film, by the way, is largely in black-and-white, with color used sparingly for emphasis. Although the director got into the business making music videos for MTV-Japan, he carefully avoids the usual choppy editing, rapid scene transitions, and kitschy gloss that mark the MTV style. Instead he seems to draw heavily on Japan's first great post-modern director, Beat Takeshi for influence, and admits to watching Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo several times while making the film. So the film has a lot of motionless images, as well as scenes done in single long takes or with very pare editing. I don't know if this makes the film nice or peaceful, but it sure does make it easier to watch than those glaring music vids I personally despise.A very well-made entertaining film; the DVD also has a "making-of" documentary disc which I found very informative, and entertaining in itself.

This is a well presented movie with very interesting camera work and music.In late 17th century, a samurai is wrongly accused to be stealing the clan's treasured sword, and has no choice but to kill the accuser on the spot and flee with the sword.The son of a clan's high official pursues him with 3 friends, to the dismay of his father who sends ninjas to protect them, knowing their swordsmanship is far from being good.This story uses the traditional Japanese principles of irremediable fate, where the characters are drawn towards actions because of the pressure of duty, sense of righteousness and pride. This contrasts with the American good-vs-bad approach to storytelling.A lot of subtle Japanese humor with situational comedy, silliness and awkward personalities that you'll appreciate more if you learn Japanese stereotypical behaviors or understand some of their social culture.

Labelled as 'a samurai movie for the MTV generation', this unfortunately is only half-accurate and does a great disservice to the film. When a film is labelled as 'for the MTV generation', we think of fast-cuts, jump-cuts, loud techno, a soundtrack designed purely to make money, weak-plot, and something to keep grabbing our weak attention spans every five minutes to make sure we're still interested. This film is not one of those.The soundtrack is a modern sounding bluesy/rock/techno affair which in many scenes is actually superbly in line with the events of the film. At times, some may find the music jarring with the period setting, but it never overwhelms you by getting in the way of the film or the story.The story itself starts out as being fairly ordinary samurai fare, but as the film progresses so too does the story, adding many additional layers to both the protagonist and the antagonist of the piece, as well as raising some very good and thoughtful moments.The story does not race along like a modern day adventure or action film, in fact it has the same kind of pace that you would expect from a Kurosawa piece at times, or a spaghetti western. Slow and languorous with occasional bursts of violence.All of the main actors acquit themselves more than adequately, in both the dramatic sequences and the all-important duelling scenes.This though, because of it's revisionist nature, is one of those films that will truly divide people. Some will consider a great piece of revisionism for the samurai legend, others won't be able to tolerate the modern sounding soundtrack. Neither are wrong, here it all comes down to what you expect or want from a samurai film. Although it worth pointing out that the classic samurai films also had 'modern' sounding scores when they were made, no samurai film has a truly 'authentic' soundtrack.I personally found the film to be hugely enjoyable and at times moving, and I would heartily recommend it to most people that I know.