Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Love And Honor (Bushi No Ichibun)


I've seen Takuya Kimura in 2046 before, and he wasn't that impressive.

In Bushi No Ichibun, it's the same thing. It's not that he's a bad actor, it's just that I expected more. Throughout the film, he seemed unreal and a little stiff. Maybe it's just me, but he failed to shine in the movie. He did win an award for his performance, but winning awards doesn't say a lot these days. After Erra Fazira was named Best Actress for FFM a few years back, I just stopped believing in film festivals altogether.

The good thing is, Takuya Kimura's acting is the only problem I have with Bushi No Ichibun.

Set in the Edo period, it's a story about a young samurai who worked as a poison taster for the king. After consuming a red tsubugai (a type of shellfish) caught off-season, he had a high fever and went blind.

Not being able to be of service to anyone and having to live on welfare for the rest of his life, he turned into a man of few words, cold and reserved. Things got even worse when he started hearing rumours about his wife's affair with a higher ranked samurai.

The most impressive thing about the movie is that you can freeze-frame any scene from the movie, and it will be picture perfect. The setting, the costume, the mood and the lighting are flawless. The camera work is especially outstanding.

I don't know if this is the best movie I've seen this year, but it sure does rank high on the list.

FYI, I watched it twice.

p/s : That Kayo is indeed a very beautiful creature. Flawless beauty, ain't she?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

gosh, i thought kimura was outstanding. it would've been so easy to overplay his role, but he didn't.

you don't really want to compare kimura-san with erra, do you? and worse, the japan academy awards with ffm!

Anonymous said...

maybe it's because i've seen him before, and he didn't make much of an impression to me, so i'll always have problems with his acting.

or maybe i just don't like takuya kimura, the way you feel about julie delpy and ethan hawke (we talked about them in Paris, remember?)

and i'm not really sure how prestigious the japan academy awards is by the way.

fadz said...

dah tgk ke filem erra berlakon tu? always remember dat our industry is a very small and lazy industry.

semua org sibuk cerita fasal filem ni...i really shd wait for it to be shw in gsc nanti