Samurai Fiction is a cool Japanese oddity that straddles the lines between being a homage, a piss take, and a deconstruction of classic samurai films. It works mostly because it plays its plot relatively straight and only adds goofy shit afterwards, and excels because it's got a great sense of fun and one seriously cool, badass villain.
Well, "villain" is probably more apt - Kazamatsuri (Tomoyasu Hotei) is more of an antihero, a ronin who impresses a local clan leader when he helps a serf couple get revenge on some bandits. For this and his fighting skills, he's granted custodianship over the clan treasure, a sword given to the family by the Shogun.
Kazamatsuri is admiring the sword in his quarters when an overzealous/jealous clan officer bursts in and accuses him of trying to steal the sword and attacks. Kazamatsuri, who's not the type to suffer fools lightly, kills him and elopes with the treasure.
Inukai (Mitsuru Fukikoshi), the clan leader's son takes it upon himself to retrieve the sword and kill the thief. But when he catches up to Kazamatsuri, he's easily beaten and one of his friends is cut down. He survives thanks to an intercession from Hanbei (Morio Kazama), a local healer who pacifies the ronin and takes the wounded noble back home with his daughter (Mari Natsuki).
Kazamatsuri then heads over to a nearby town and shacks up with the owner of the local gambling den. Meanwhile, Hanbei and his daughter try to disuade a healing Inukai from going after the ronin again. There's some added complications with a bunch of clan ninjas and the relationship between the ronin and the criminals that run the town, but other than that the plot is relatively... maybe not straightforward, but simple.
It is a little unconventional, though, in the sense that Inukai - whom the movie treats as its protagonist with a straight face, even giving him narrator duties - is kind of ridiculous, a conceited noble dipshit who needs to be reined back and appeased before he gets himself killed. It falls to Hanbei, who's a pacifist, to try and resolve the Kazamatsuri situation and try to recover the heirloom.
It's a very playful film. Shot almost completely in black and white with flashes of colour, it features a great soundtrack from Hotei which starts out with the traditional Taiko drums, but soon switches to different styles of old-school rock.
There are also a lot of comedy elements. Some of them pretty funny, a lot of them very, very broad, but most of it is character-based and all the silly stuff never threatens to derail the plot. I really enjoyed the film's tone, which is good-natured and likeable to a fault.
Director Hiroyuki Nakatano started out as a music video director, so he manages to squeeze a fair bit of style in. The frequent fights are well choreographed with an eye towards them looking good rather than realistic and are a lot of fun. As for the acting... well, it's of the more... exaggerated school of Japanese acting. Thankfully the two main characters of the movie are fine; Hanbei is very relatable as a man put in a complicated situation, trying to find a peaceful resolution, and Kazamatsuri... well, Hotei (whom I thought kind of looks like Adam Driver) is an actual rock star, and he brings all of his charisma to bear on the role. The film in turn recognizes this and gives him a lot of screentime and great lines.
So yeah, I liked this one a lot. I'm not that familiar with Samurai movies (just the classics) so I'm sure there's tons of references I missed. Still found it very enjoyable; thanks Eff for the recommendation.
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