Very Cool!!!

good back-story, and good acting

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Reading the reviews here, I thought I had missed something special. So I made the effort to see When The Last Sword is Draw (2003) and I found it quite disturbing.I found myself asking:Has old age make-up not improved a little since Little Big Man (1970) by Arthur Penn?Has the Samurai film not evolved since the classic Yojimbo (1961), Sanjuro (1962) by Akira Kurosawa or Samurai Rebellion (1967) by Masaki Kobayashi? Has performance in acting not evolved since the advent of sound? Apart from a few poor CGI shots this film is excruciatingly dated. The acting is very suspect. One lead actor is exceptionally hammy, ripping up the scenery at every opportunity, while the other seems out of his depth. The latter is based slightly on the brooding Samurai, that Toshiro Mufune made famous, but he has only has one awkward and sulky expression.The story is a melodramatic and sentimental nonsense. The musical score is very Hollywood and makes a valiant effort at pulling at your heart strings. The cinematography and framing is listless. The battle scenes are of the standard of a cheap TV movie.The fight scenes are pathetic. At one point our lead actor clearly kills a victim by stabbing the space between the mans arm and midriff. Page one for a samurai film; make the kills look realistic!This film feels like it was put together by amateurs that have not learnt from classic films that have proceeded it.

There are samurai films that story wise stand up on their own and there are others that make less sense to those outside of Japan. Mibu Gishi Den is definitely a film that would help with a quick stop at the Wikipedia to bone up on the historical events that the film is set around. Without some knowledge of the Shinsengumi and the upheaval of their times, a viewer is going to be confused and lost at points. A point that might help is that samurais depicted in this film would only receive a stipend according to their social status not their ability in the clan. That could mean that an excellent, devoted fighter would be dressed in rags while a useless fop had money to burn. The similar film "Twilght Samurai" also deals with this issue. This is a very well mounted production, well directed, photographed and acted. The action is expertly mounted. The non-linear storytelling (flashbacks within flashbacks) can be confusing to those who are trying to keep up with the history but it makes the story more rewarding in the end. The movie is long but that only shows itself during two soapy scenes of melodrama but these are followed by such well done scenes of emotion it's made up for.Recommended.

7/10, ***.5/4Kanichiro Yoshimura (Kiichi Nakai) is a samurai who was forced to betray his clan in order to save his family. His life goes on in a new clan until finally, he crawls back wounded to his first clan, only to be forced to commit hara-kiri before even seeing his family including the daughter he's never seen.The script was a bit confusing. Of course, I saw it with subtitles and I have never been to Japan, but still. Other than that, I liked the script, especially Yoshimura's death monologue at the end, although it dragged a bit.Speaking of dragging, that's my #1 concern with this movie. After the final battle at the end where Yoshimura refuses to back down even against 100's of guns, it gets a bit boring. The monologue is a bit long, and it could have been cut down. Everything else after his death could also have been cut down to a few minutes, instead of the 10 or 20 minutes that it was.The directing was incredible! Yojiro Takita takes the simplest shots and uses them to create a beautiful story! (There was one problem that I noticed: They didn't leave footprints in the snow.) I loved how he framed his shots and used only a few shots to create a scene.The acting was pretty good, although some of it was weak. Nothing that good or that bad. Just average.All in all, a movie you must see!

This picture was nice and refreshing. I'm always searching for a samurai movie with a budget, that wasn't shot with a digital camera (like all of the t.v. dramas) and that has nice swordplay. I found one. Like most Japanese movies, an American viewer tends to think they must be watching the director's cut but it's definitely worth the watch. I'm not sure who (or even if) I'm supposed to be rooting for. The Shinsengumi is mostly romanticized in Japan but this picture shows them doing what they did. House raids, executions, etc. all in the name of the shogun. If you enjoyed the type of movie that The Last Samurai aspired (and in some instances was successful) to be, then I recommend this movie to you.