Viewed in
2010
Premise
The Akira Kurosawa movie, famous for being the inspiration for Star Wars, about two peasants trying to smuggle a wanted princess through enemy territories in feudal Japan.
Loved
The spear duel.
Liked
Some of the comedy.
Disliked
How the peasant characters got annoying halfway through.
Hated
Princess Yuki character.
Thoughts
A far cry from his masterpieces, but pretty entertaining.
It was definitely the most light-hearted of Kurosawa's movies that I had seen. There was a lot of comedy coming from the two bumbling, greedy peasants as they tried to run away with the gold, but end up shooting themselves in the foot.
Like his other epics, the cinematography was quite pretty to look at, with exotic locations, armies of extras, and beautiful natural scenery.
Lastly, I have seen many kinds of sword fights, but I cannot recall ever watching a spear duel before. It was unique and memorable. Definitely my favorite part of the movie.
The problem was that these good qualities became some of the flaws. For example, the comedy was good up to an hour. However, afterward, it got repetitive and annoying that the peasants could not figure out that they were smuggling a real princess.
While there was some wonderful long shots, it could have used some closer shots to get the audience more involved with the characters. Even the awesome spear fight seemed to be jammed into the plot just for the sake of it.
For me the worst part of the movie was Misa Uehara as Princess Yuki. Her performance was sometimes laughably bad and annoying most of the time.
As a Star Wars fan, it was interesting to see how Lucas got his inspiration for R2D2, C3PO, and Princess Leia's story. But the bottom line is that this was an uneven action comedy epic with a fantastic spear fight.
What I would change
Got rid of the first thirty minutes of the two peasants wandering, getting captured, escaping, then wandering again. It would have made the pacing tighter, and the comedy would have felt less repetitive.
