Kuro-obi

This is truly a great film. Original and refreshing in its presentation. Sure, the plot can be easily deduced, but the environment, film direction, pure beauty of clean karate used appropriately makes this movie a real winner.

The picture is beautiful, cinematography excellent. You develop a real connection with the characters as well. The movie is also suspenseful and engaging. The fighting scenes are spectacular. It also captures the historic period of 1930's Japan very well too.

You can even learn something by watching this movie. There are lessons of life to be learned and you can come away feeling very satisfied that your time was well spent.

This is one of those movies where after watching it you say, "Wow."

Disregard kobushi's review. His years of experience practicing karate have apparently clouded his judgment considerably. No one save perhaps himself and a handful of others cares a hoot about the true to life mechanics of real-world karate. Suffice to say his approach to the film is laughable in its narrow-mindedness.

The film presents a deceptively simple and elegantly told martial arts fable, set against a backdrop of an increasingly militarized japan. The fight scenes , tho admirably staged and completely credible (and shocking in their immediacy), are merely the seasoning on a powerful tale of good vs. evil. The stylistic flourishes and acrobatic excesses which plague most other martial arts movies are completely absent, and that is a welcome and long overdue development. The script seamlessly fuses the protagonists' journeys of self-discovery with the setting in which the story unfolds. The director's calm, measured approach is refreshing in its economy, a rare thing in a martial arts film. There is a charming honesty about the whole project that makes it difficult to resist..

As the two protagonists wrestle with their own diametrically opposed natures and strive to discover the secret of their training, the inevitable standoff between them is subdued but satisfying, like the film itself. The supporting characters (and I'm thinking mainly of the evil army general), though two-dimensional, are well-written and performed. The acting is uniformly excellent, a laudable accomplishment since apparently many of the martial artists are non-actors..

More than likely the film will be derided by the ADD generation, but i thought it was a welcome return to the style of old Japanese classic films (Reminiscent also of early Bruce Lee movies, in content as well as in spirit). It isn't pretentious or abstruse enough to be labelled an art film, and it shuns the spectacle of mainstream schlock. Kuro-Obi is a humble, poetic film both funny and moving.. and is adorned with a beautiful musical score.

a resounding 8/10

Black Belt, or in Japanese kuro-obi is a Japanese martial-arts movie directed by Sunichi Nagasaki. Although the director was nominated for the Action Asia Award in Deauville Asian film festival in 2008 as well as for the Grand Prix des Ameriques in Montréal World Film Festival in 2007, he didn't win any of those prices. However the film was a great success in Japan. For me too. Before watching this movie, I wasn't a great fan of martial-arts movies because of the exaggerations and the special effects in this type of movies. But after watching this movie of which you can say everything except that it contains special effects. That gives the movie a natural touch. For example there is no one in the movie who is jumping meters in the air while fighting or making incredible stunts and tricks. I have never seen such a movie. In other words you can't feel any distance between yourself and the acting. This makes it easier to watch the movie. The three principal actors in the movie are Akihito yagi playing the role of Giryu, Tatsuya Noka playing the role of Taika and Juji Suzuki playing the role of Choei. None of the three actors is known in the West. The story is about three Karate students. The three rules are played by the just mentioned actors. They live with their Karate master in a secluded forest where their dojo is (a dojo can refer to a temple or to a simple training place where karate students can ameliorate their skills). The events take place in the year of 1932 when Japan was planning for a great invasion of the islands on the Pacific, so they needed a great army. The three pupils were forced by the army forces to join the army. At that time their master dies before he was able to give his black belt to one of his three students. The receiver of the belt will be the successor of the great master. After burying their master they leave forced by the army their dojo. Everyone of them go on a different path based on what he has learned from the teaching of his master. The coincidence will gather them on a battle. The philosophy of martial-arts has an important role in this movie. You must have some background information concerning martial-arts philosophy to understand this movie. I recommend those who do not understand karate-philosophy and think that karate is no more than fighting to watch the movie

The movie tagline: "Real Fight, Real Karate, Real Japan" just says it all. I waited much to see this on DVD.. The movie lived up to my expectations, which were based on the trailer and the fact that the main "actors" are real karate masters of 1st, 5th and 6th dan.

The story takes place in the 30's, the country is about to go to war. A military troop arrives at a dojo where 3 guys practice karate with an old master and they soon engage in a fight. The soldiers want to take the building but finally they take the karate pupils, after they demonstrated their strength. The old master soon dies and leaves the black belt - representing their dojo - behind so that the most worthy of them can get it. But they have a lot to learn before.. Giryu (Akihito Yagi) is very naive, while Taikan (Tatsuya Naka) is the opposite of him, so they take different routes. The story, the acting, the movie itself could stand on it's own without any fights. The scenery is nice, the drama, the characters are well built, the directing is very simple, yet powerful, honest. The music is also worth mentioning, it was composed by Naoki Sato.

So, what's so special about this movie? That it's real, and it has it all. Great fighters and actors, a meaningful story, a nice movie with a respectful message and representation of karate. The style which - compared to hundreds of movies about flying swordsmen or vengeful kung fu masters - is just not so popular on screen. Maybe that's because it's not about showing off, so it doesn't look that cool at first. Don't expect any wire-work, stuntmen falling ten meters or special effects to exaggerate anything. There is nothing to exaggerate here, because even the simplest, shortest moves look so perfect and powerful that it needs no explanation. This movie makes a lot of things more clear about karate, and gives meaning to it. Reading about the movie on the net I found several karate forums where people praised the actors for being great masters and also nice, humble persons after knowing them. The fact that the movie was also advertised in these circles made it clear that it's not an average action flick. Naka Sensei, who plays Taikan in the movie is an instructor (ranked 6th dan) of the Japan Karate Association and Akihito Yagi (5th dan) is also an instructor and the president of IMGKA (International Meibukan Gojyu-Ryu Karate Association). I hope it wasn't the last movie they appeared in, their charm and talent would be a great addition to Japanese cinema and could further exhibit the true power and meaning of karate traditions.

It's hardly that there's no worth here, but it's a picture torn in different directions. How much of it can be attributed to screenwriter George Iida and how much to director Nagasaki Shunichi I do not know, but I believe they both share responsibility in various degrees for how this was shaped. We have, in turn, a wartime drama of the Japanese Imperial Army requisitioning dojo across the nation, speaking to a conflict of values and world views, and otherwise domestic turmoil of the time. We have the sensei wishing to impart certain values to his pupils, suggesting a quiet drama examining what karate truly means to its practitioners and the culture from which it derives. And we have the connoted premise of that sensei's top three pupils, Taikan, Giryu, and Choei, squaring up against each other to determine their sensei's rightful successor - a fighting movie, and ostensibly one reduced to its core components as actual martial arts practitioners fill the primary roles. These are all worthy ideas for cinematic storytelling, and they could possibly fit together, but I think they do so gawkily in 'Black belt,' and not entirely convincingly; I'm inclined to believe the concept could have been boiled down to a more streamlined form.

The more ideas that the feature tries to weave together, the more unwieldy it becomes, exemplified before even one-third of the runtime has elapsed when Giryu is targeted for revenge, and seen a bit later with Taikan's inner conflict, and General Goda's plans. These ungainly narrative problems are exacerbated by measured, deliberate scene writing, somewhat stilted dialogue, and probably most of all by the unnatural pacing, movement, and acting brought out out through Nagasaki's direction. The man has enjoyed an established career in the industry, so he's clearly no slouch. I don't know what happened here, but the film as we see it feels thin, wanting, and too often curiously restrained. Many moments in the direction, dialogue, scenes, acting, or even cinematography or editing are very clearly included for dramatic effect, and instead feel all the more false or even hokey. All that this needed to do was to tell a story, but choices were made throughout, in various ways, that place considerable upper limits on the title's longevity.

'Black belt' is beautifully shot, a credit to both Nagasaki and cinematographer Kaneko Masato. Even thusly impacted by the direction, the cast tends to give commendable performances, not least stars like Yagi Akihito, Naka Tatsuya, and Suzuki Yuji, who are not professional actors. The filming locations are beautiful, and the production design and art direction no less so. The fight choreography is outstanding - the most consistent highlight, and surely the best - and the action is all the sharper for the fact that the editing and cinematography do not chop up these sequences to hide pulled punches as too often happens in modern fare as a substitute for, you know, actual combat. Employed somewhat sparingly and judiciously, where Sato Naoki's music rears its head (more notably at some points more than others), it's a terrific and enticing complement to the proceedings. There really are superb ideas in Iida's screenplay. I actually do like this movie, and as the length draws on it arguably gels more, and finds more strength. All this just makes it all the more unfortunate that the strength is rather variable in the first place, and continues to be so. Even at its best, all the plot elements do not necessarily come together with flawless cohesiveness.

Stupendously dramatic and genuinely impactful at its best, I want to like it more than I do. At its worst this raises a quizzical eyebrow - even at the promised climax, honestly - and maybe I'm being too generous in my assessment. There is lasting with here, but I'm of the mind that in its writing and direction alike it needed to be tightened, more focused, and much more mindful. 'Black belt' is worth watching on its own merits if you have the opportunity to check it out, but don't go out of your way for it; save it for a quiet day, and sit for it with tempered expectations, and that may be the best way to get the most out of your viewing experience.