Martial Arts Comedy...Seven warriors, seven meals, seven fights...
Sparkling review and vid preview included in link below...
Has cheeky potential...possible 6 Bawangs out of 10
http://badassdigest.com/2013/08/06/f...action-comedy/
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Martial Arts Comedy...Seven warriors, seven meals, seven fights...
Sparkling review and vid preview included in link below...
Has cheeky potential...possible 6 Bawangs out of 10
http://badassdigest.com/2013/08/06/f...action-comedy/
I forgot Fantasia was just held.
Quote:
Fantasia Film Festival: Fantasia audience welcomes Japanese martial-arts film Bushido Man, and the team behind it
August 4, 2013. 6:55 am • Section: The Cine Files
Posted by:
Liz Ferguson
http://wpmedia.blogs.montrealgazette...bushidoman.jpg
Bushido Man is set in the present day, though you wouldn’t necessarily know that from the synopsis.
Mitsuki Koga plays Toramaru, the Bushido Man of the title. He’s a martial-arts student of the Cosmic Way. And a very advanced student, at that. He wants to learn as much as he can about every kind of martial art, so he travels throughout Japan, challenging various masters. (He looks a bit unusual, walking the streets of modern day Japan in the kind of outfit we usually see in samurai films.) After returning home, he tells his own master, Gensai, about seven of his experiences.
He describes his pre-fight meal first though, because one of his master’s precepts is that you can understand your enemy better if you eat what he eats.
Based on Toramaru’s description, Gensai tries to guess where he was and who he fought. These guesses involve a knowledge of regional cuisine, along with word play and some quirky aspects of Japanese grammar.
The fights are great to watch. They begin with kung fu, using hands and feet, and then become more complicated as they continue, using sticks, swords, a gangster’s knife, then guns.
There are humorous bits, as when Toramaru produces bright yellow running shoes and matching nunchaku from a shopping bag, and when he spells out a challenge using twigs, and his opponent concedes defeat in the same way. Before one confrontation, Toramaru eats a lot of junk food from a convenience store, to my surprise. I would have thought that there would be rules against that sort of thing. Toramaru’s master tells him that he used to work as an extra in movies, playing gangsters.
Most of the fights are conducted in a respectful manner, beginning with bows, but a gangster is rather rude.
During one bout, great care is taken not to harm a turtle. A Buddha statue seems to observe this with benign approval.
Toramaru confronts a very skilled blind swordsman, and resorts to rather extreme lengths to improve his focus during that contest. (Squeamish folks, beware!)
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The Bushido Man (Mitsuki Koga) fights Muso the Blind Samurai (Kazuki Tsujimoto).
As I said, the audience really enjoyed Bushido Man. Star Mitsuki Koga, writer/director Takanori Tsujimoto, actor/action director Kensuke Sonomura and cameo actor Marc Walkow (token bad foreigner) got a rousing welcome. They shared some anecdotes about making the film and took questions from the audience. They also tossed some of those convenience store snacks into the crowd, to the delight of those who caught them.
So, anecdotes: There aren’t many low-budget action movies being made in Japan. They made Bushido Man on a tiny budget, from money out of their own pockets. “No money, no storyboard!”
When someone said that the camera work was really good, they revealed that they shot it “on a camera like that,” pointing to the ordinary-looking still camera of a nearby photographer. (Of course, they can shoot video, too.) We all cheered.
The fight scenes were filmed at conventional speeds, they didn’t play around with it, as some filmmakers do.
There had been a fight involving a boomerang, but that got cut from the film.
The turtle in the kung fu fight scene belongs to. . . the director, I think. (I took notes, but some details are missing.) The quote I wrote down is: “This is his turtle. He took it on the metro.”
About the food scenes, Mitsuki Koga said that they were all filmed within two days. (Audience groans. There were a LOT of food scenes!) Which things did he enjoy the most? “Steak and sushi.” How does he like his steak? “Medium-rare.” If he were to fight in Montreal, what would he eat first? “Poutine!” he answered, adding that, “I had some last night.”
We were urged to blog, tweet, and tell our friends about Bushido Man, etc., so that’s what I’m doing here.
You might like to visit the Bushido Man Facebook page.
http://wpmedia.blogs.montrealgazette...pg?w=470&h=353
The Bushido Man gang at Fantasia. When someone asked actor Mitsuki Koga, centre, to take off his jacket, he gracefully obliged. The photos I took came out too fuzzy, though.
Awesome !!
Don't forget to wait a hour to fight after eating, you don't wanna get a cramp !
This looks very promising.
Enter to win KungFuMagazine.com's contest for BUSHIDO MAN: SEVEN DEADLY BATTLES on Blu-Ray™! Contest ends 6:00 p.m. PST on 08/21/14. Good luck everyone!
Anyone seen this yet?
See our BUSHIDO-MAN-on-Blu-Ray-winners thread.
Okay, I seem to recall a thread on this, but couldn't find it. I watched it last night, and have to say that I was a bit surprised. It was a lot more entertaining than I was expecting. I guess I was expecting something really home video-looking like High Kick Girl. But it turns out that, for me, it was more entertaining than any other recent MA-based movies out of Japan, as well as anything recent out of mainland China or Thailand.
Firstly, this movie is an homage of sorts to KF movies of the 1970s to early '80s. A MA disciple travels throughout Japan, challenging the best fighters in various disciplines. Before he fights them, he eats the favorite dish of each fighter to learn more about them. After each victory, he is presented the secret scrolls to each style, which he presents to his sensei. The movie is a comedy, yet also contains some MA wisdom at the end; the leading character plays it straight throughout, giving a good balance to the goofiness of some of the characters. The fights are more intricately choreographed than most nowadays, an obvious nod to KF films, and I don't recall any wire work, though there is some CGI at certain points.
The movie is quirky, but not overly bizarre if you're at all familiar with Japanese cinematic humor. If not, then you may be at a loss...after viewing this, I checked out some reviews on Amazon and was a bit surprised that the majority were negative. To each his own, but it appears that some reviews were given by underachieving 6th-graders (perhaps during a kiddie sleepover?), some of whom even admitted that *they didn't even watch the film*. Clearly, not everyone will like it, and for some the humor and the entire point of the film will go over their heads, but if someone's going to review it, there should at least be a requirement that they watched the ****ed thing.
Bushido Man takes place in modern times, but also has the feel of a period piece. My favorite opponent of his was the Japanese cowboy who uses a pistol, but they're all fun. There were even a couple surprises the movie had for me, which, if you've seen as many movies (especially MA movies) as I have, is not easy to do. It's also beautifully shot. I suppose this will be one you either love or hate. But I would definitely recommend using the Japanese with English subs option.