Sanada Jûyûshi

After a cartoon introduction that went on faaaaaar too long, the cheesy beginning kind of announced that this would make Monkey Magic like like a Kurosawa masterpiece. Still, I gave it a chance.

15 minutes later, I simply couldn't do it any more - boring dialogue, slow pace, and an almost complete lack of action in a film that's supposed to be funny but never once made me even remotely amused me, meant that it just had to be turned off.

If anyone can actually sit through this, I'd award that person 5 stars, but for being an absolutely terrible piece of merde, I give it 1.

Borrowing some elements from Seven Samurai, this is nowhere in the same league as Kurosawa's masterpiece, but it does eventually turn out to be a bit of a corker. Essentially told as a manga come to life, the style does take some getting used to as a hybrid of Taiga dramas by way of Kill Bill.

A group of rag-tag samurai wannabes take it upon themselves to help cushion the Toyotomi family's fall from power in feudal Japan as the seemingly unstoppable Ieyasu consolidates his power. It's a fun riff on the historical story that didn't have me regretting the time spent to watch it. It's not going to be on any top ten lists but if you're into this sort of thing I don't think you'll be too disappointed. Despite a limited budget they do quite a lot with what they've got.

An entertaining piece of samurai fluff and it's always nice to see Ken Matsudaira, particularly back with the Tokugawa gang.