The Legend & Butterfly

Historically this is probably not possible. An enduring love between Oda Nobunaga and Nohime. The costumes are 10/10. OST is 9/10. The prancing and laughing westerners could be eliminated they look stupid.

But Takuya Kimura's acting of multidimensional Nobunaga is praise worthy. His chemistry with Haruka Ayase is bittersweet. The scene when Nobunaga has to bite on his dagger scabbard to hold his tears when seeing Nohime leave tugged on my heart strings. This is an excellent movie. I just wished there would be more emotional depth between those two since they have so much chemistry.

Akechi Mitsuhide is well played. I am surprised at how young the actor was. Overall this is a movie I would recommend to people who enjoy Sengoku era inspired movies.

Although I've seen various actors portray Oda Nobunaga before, this is the first film where they've depicted Nohime as even more formidable than Nobunaga himself. Especially in their brief close combat scenes, shortly after getting married, Nohime confronts Nobunaga with a sword, and later, even in their prosperity, she powerfully reminds him of his misguided path. Aya Ueto's portrayal exudes unwavering strength, while Takuya Kimura's character evolves from hesitation to determined success and ultimately to a supremely confident ruler. Their expressions are truly on point. Although the story revisits familiar themes, the dialogue design leading up to the Battle of Okehazama really emphasizes the advantages of the enemy, making us ponder where we should apply our strengths now.

There have been a lot of films made about the mighty and brutal warrior Oda Nobunaga, but certainly not one like this, which seems to take its cue from some early legends about his wife Nohime, that she herself was a trained assassin.

The first thing to say is not to come to this film for real life history - the film makers have very much put action and romance and drama above any kind of historical verisimilitude. But the result is very watchable, mostly thanks to some great acting, especially from the two leads, although sometimes Kimura struggles with the widely differing sides of Oda portrayed in the film, from idiotic young man to vicious killer to romantic warrior leader. Jaruka Ayase is terrific as Nohime, the real power behind Odas throne.

The action and drama is often a little over the top, but is always watchable so long as you don't think too much about the likelihood of the plot. The ending will very much be love it or hate it, but I enjoyed it. Like a lot of modern Japanese productions, they seem very good at making a low budget go a long way - some of the settings are quite spectacular.

So overall, while not quite up to the standard of the best recent Japanese historical dramas, this is still very much worth your time.

Super interesting movie rooted in history.

Kimura Takuya plays Nobunaga beautifully starting from a scrappy teenager to the Demon Lord that he is famous for. Ayase Haruka also plays a strong woman who contrasts with Nobunaga. A huge portion of the movie is character development of Nobunaga and Nohime and you can see how their personalities change over time as they're influenced by their situation. Throughout the movie, you also see recaps of major historical events that Nobunaga went through in his conquest to unify Japan.

I love how the movie labels each historical event so that you can read along Wikipedia as you watch the movie, if learning history is your jam.

What can I say?, this is a really good movie!, it has every element of a good story along with some kick butt samurai action and humor and romance, it is a story of fate, it is like the story of Arjuna who had to do what he had to do and be a warrior, it is a story of my best friend who became a special forces medic and who's choices I always questioned but he was he is a kind of hero in his own way and these heroes fall prey themselves to the violence their predilections put them in and who knows if there's any virtue in their actions, except of course their very intention in the first place however good it may be, this is a damn fine movie don't let anybody dissuade you from watching all 2 hours and 48 minutes of it, one of the best of its genre.