Japan’s most legendary swordsman defeats hundreds of opponents in a single, 77-minute shot. An almost transcendental marathon of mayhem.
Everyone recognizes work when they see it. The one-take film has increased in popularity and become more common than ever before with the advent of digital filmmaking. “Crazy Samurai Musashi” employs this concept in a purely chaotic way that arguably detracts from its overall success and even diminishes the one-take novelty over the course of its runtime. While a feat in and of itself, the film lacks any sort of novel usage to engage the audience either by spectacle or by empathy. “Crazy Samurai Musashi” feels like the level on a videogame where you grind your way through low-level enemies only your protagonist only has four moves.
This film, taken around the time of “Out and Deluxe,” consists of the most famous battle of the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. In this 77-minute, one-scene, no-cut action sequence, Miyamoto (Tak Sakaguchi) defeats 588 enemies, one after the other. There is no room for error, no room for corny or unconvincing moves.
I wanted to be hyped for this movie. Truly, I did. The poster promised 400 samurai versus one little old man. What could go wrong? Well, the novelty of the one-take feels as much its precision timing and marathon-like endurance. Effective movies have utilized all manner of effects to either film in one go or stitch together an entire movie from scratch and admittedly their ridiculous-sized budgets helped accomplish that goal, but there’s a powerful reward for ingenuity that “Crazy Samurai Musashi” doesn’t quite earn.
The film opens with gorgeous cinematography as the army coalesces around a Japanese cabin in the woods. We learn very little backstory but the opening seven minutes tighten the screws very thoroughly. With nuance and exposition, the whole movie gets set up for us. Much like the opening cutscenes of a videogame, we’re granted enough exposition to place us in the story then- cut to a wide opening title for the game, I mean movie.
Enter on – A samurai. Surrounded by enemies. Like many great videogames, we learn our moves as low-level baddies charge and we kick their butts. Musashi blocks strike after strike for the first fifteen minutes alone delving into repetition so thorough I tuned out. Those fifteen minutes felt like an hour simply because the repetition of blows and moves felt like you were watching the same thirty seconds on an endless loop. I hoped the movie was simply warming up but as Musashi wanders new scenery and encounters new enemies it all began to feel… rote.
The challenge of the one-take fight scene certainly prevails upon us but after fifteen minutes of watching poor Tak Sakaguchi hack and slash, we get the point. The movie really starts to lift when Musashi takes a break. In those times off it feels very much like we’ve completed a level as Musashi gets some water or food, rests his body, before lifting a new katana and entering the fray once again.
Occasionally, we’re granted extra scenes of samurai fighting each other or Musashi questioning his ability to continue but they are short-lived and we go back to head-bonking for a thorough hour. The precision of a delicate one-take feels completely abandoned in this film for the raw energy of just- simple sword fighting. It feels much like a one-hour fight between improv actors with the same seven ideas and I regret typing that.
The movie comes back around by the very end just by watching Musashi dig deep for yet another round of baddies. Whether or not Tak is acting is up for debate but I’d argue a one-take hour-long sword fight would exhaust just about anybody. I appreciate all the effort but something about seeing the opening and closing of the film with a prologue and an epilogue makes me think director Yuji Shimomura can do a lot more when not limited by the single take idea. I would very much love to see the more heavily edited version as I can definitely see longevity in that movie.
“Crazy Samurai Musashi” is premiering at the 2020 Fantasia Festival
