280 - The Sword of Doom

[captainofbeef]

- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- A new essay by film critic Geoffrey O’Brien
- New and improved English subtitle translation

[criterionmaster]

This film is so much fun to watch. This you can tell was a inspiration to Tarantino for his Crazy 88's battle. The end to this film is amazing and gives me chills the more I think about it. If you like Kill Bill or Samurai movies in general you must check this underrated gem out.

[ie]

The ending didn't really phase me as much as it did for others.


Regardless, I still think this is a great movie.

And, I must admit, I love the cover. It's just such a great shot, even though it doesn't appear as kickassidly in the movie.

[ie]

ie said:

The ending didn't really phase me as much as it did for others.


Regardless, I still think this is a great movie.

And, I must admit, I love the cover. It's just such a great shot, even though it doesn't appear as kickassidly in the movie.

Signed. ;D

[criterionmaster]

Ah, must not have seen this! Anyways, the shot is in the film, but yeah, doesn't seem as cool. It is a further away shot when shown in the film. One of my favorite covers though.

SPOILER: Click to show

The ending, with the freeze frame, is just mind-blowing! It really reminds me of the battle in Kill Bill, that crazy 88 one. So badass.

[ie]

I didn't really think much of the ending.


I did want to say that I thought the cinematography was great. Just how everything looked. How we're first introduced to Ryunosuke Tsukue, with his pitch-black kimono -- I don't know how common that is, but I'm just not used to seeing kimonos that dark in Japanese movies.




Honestly, the Sword of Doom is kind of a cheesy title, in my opinion.

But does it work better than Dai-bosatsu toge, or the Pass of the Great Buddha? Or Dai-bosatsu Pass? They have that tendency to give catchy titles to some with foreign movies, but they didn't rename Kagemusha as the Shadow Xtreme Fighter!!!11.

[criterionmaster]

Well look at a lot of old great samurai films, with such titled as Kill! and many others they all have great names like that. What you call "cheesy," I call badass. Very nice screenshot too, I love the way all old samurai films look, I don't think you can ever make a film look as cool, despite coming mighty close with Kill Bill. I think you would REALLY like Harikiri, check that out right away.

[captainofbeef]

I loved this movie, such a blast to watch such well done fight scenes. Tarantino clearly loves this film as Dan stated earlier.

[blackmoses]

Yes, some of the best fight scenes ever. The part with all the snow is just amazing.

[ie]

captainofbeef said:

Sword of Doom

8/10
Man, was THIS movie badass. It centers around one man who's life goal is to just kill people and become a better samurai than others. Nakadai gives an excellent performances as a man who, like Criterion describes him, is totally evil. The film has many awesome action scenes, including two that Tarantino jacked for Kill Bill. The battle in the snow and the Crazy 88's battle. The movie sort of plods near the middle and some of the sub plots about corruption really took away from the central story of the film. But overall, the scenes with Nakadai made up for that. Mifune is also excellent in his small role. I really liked the ending, its suddenness really added to the film. Overall, a great samurai film that had obvious influence on directors of today.

blackmoses said:

YES! That film kicks SO much ass! The ending! Need I say more?

I think Harakiri has one of the best fight scenes ever recorded, but that's just me.

[ie]

Guess what?

About six years before the Sword of Doom came out, an obscure trilogy was released. The Satan's Sword trilogy. The first movie in this trilogy was later remade in black-and-white... and even though it had the same Japanese title, you know it as the Sword of Doom. I've only seen five minutes of it, but it KICKS ASS. Too bad the version I have is very low quality.

[criterionmaster]

so, are you saying this sword of doom, the one on criterion, is a remake?!

[ie]

criterionmaster said:

so, are you saying this sword of doom, the one on criterion, is a remake?!

The Sword of Doom is, in fact, a remake of the first movie in the Satan's Sword trilogy.

Technically, both are based off of the same source material, but still, from what I've seen, they're a lot alike.

[criterionmaster]

wow, i wonder if they mention this anywhere on the dvd. i would have loved to see both of the films released in the same set, like they did with the killers. weird the version that came before it, was made in color, yet this one, made after, was in black and white. you definitely should try and finish it, even with the bad quality, just so you can tell us how they compare to each other. i can't fucking wait to hear about the ending of the original, and if it is at all like the remake's.

where did you obtain a copy of the film? download it?

[ie]

It's not on R1 DVD... at least, I don't think.

Got it off KG, because they had a chambara month going on, and I managed to grab a whole bunch of great stuff, this trilogy included.


I'll try to remember to post a comparison after I'm done, or just a confirmation that "yeah, it's about the same." Even with a better quality transfer, Okamoto's version does look better than Misumi's version, so perhaps that's why Okamoto wanted to remake it.

[criterionmaster]

damn. i might have to grab it off that site at a future date, but, i want to wait to hear what you thought of the film first, 'cause it could not be worth getting.

yeah, this sword of doom looks really, really good, in my opinion.

[ie]

I estimate around the weekend or something. This trilogy is is definitely some of the next chambara movies I want to check out, along with Three Outlaw Samurai and the Last Samurai (there's more than one), but I'm going to be ultrabusy coming up soon.

[ie]

Wow, I did not even touch Satan's Sword trilogy since my last post. We'll see how things go, though, now that I've added it to my 100 movies to watch in 2008.