Gojoe, le pont vers l'enfer

Gojoe is part of a new wave of Japanese cinema, taking very creative directors, editors and photographers and working on historic themes, what the Japanese call "period pieces". Gojoe is extremely creative in terms of color, photography, and editing. Brilliant, even. The new wave of Japanese samurai films allows a peek at traditional beliefs in shamanism, demons and occult powers that were certainly a part of their ancient culture, but not really explored in Kurosawa's samurai epics, or the Zaitochi series. Another fine example of this genre is Onmyoji (2001). I would place director Sogo Ichii as one of the most interesting and creative of the new wave Japanese directors. Other recent Japanese period pieces I would highly recommend include Yomada's Twilight Samurai (2002) and Shintaro Katsu's Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman (2003).

This story is set in 12th century Japan and shows the fight of a non-violent monk against a demon protector of the Gojoe bridge. As far as story goes, this one is not very interesting. At no point in the movie do you actually care what will happen next. The pace is slow, which is successful at times, but feel overly drawn out for the majority of the picture.

The fighting scenes are not very well choreographed and are truly long and boring with the exception of the finale one. The effortlessness in which the demon slays its victims should have been shown with a few well placed kill instead of a continuous uninteresting, placid bloodbath. It is said that the demon wants to kill a thousand souls, and the director seemingly tried to show us at least a few hundred kills. I think this was a mistake.

As much as the story fails to convey anything substantial, the cinematographic work of Makoto Watanabe is some of the best footage I have seen in a while, who exploits some interesting visual technics and has an amazing grasp of the power of colors. It also serves to create some distinct moods that can be relatively suggestive and involving. In particular, I am thinking here of a scene in which Benkei finds a poor soul on a beach who wants to set himself ablaze. Numerous innovative compositions were also well used by director Sogo Ishii who seems to be given his cinematographer some creative leeway. Unfortunately, the director cannot direct the rest of this mediocre story to anything substantial. The real star here is Watanabe who proves to be an ingenious director of photography and explores the art more than your average DOP. If you like artistic cinematography, I suggest you endure the tedious story (put mute if you want) and enjoy some excellent footage.

This movie rates as one of my all time favourite top 10 movies. Many people seeing it for the first time and knowing little about many of the themes in the movie probably won't understand why I find it so enthralling so I will try to explain...

The movie is very rich in historical detail and cultural insights, and while it has a few minor anachronisms, they are completely forgivable. The story is a retelling of the famous duel between the Monk Benkei and the young Prince Yoshitsune on Gojo bridge. During the fight according to legend Yoshitsune bests Benkei and the monk becomes the prince's loyal retainer. This movie is a revision of that story however and involves war, dark prophecy, and political maneuvering.

One of the main themes in the movie is "Mappo", which is the prophecy by the Buddha that after 1000 years his teachings would fail and the world would fall into chaos. It was believed in Heian Japan, after the eruption of Mt Fuji and the civil war between the Taira (Heike) and the Minamoto (Genji) that the world would fall into anarchy and everything would collapse. It is a time of demons.

Next you have the way in which the movie resolves the issue of Yoshitsune's sword training by the Tenku (Raven Goblins) of Karuma. Defeated clans often escaped into the mountains and disguised themselves as demons to scare the locals off. This is said to be where ninja clans began historically. Yoshitsune's depiction in Gojo nicely accommodates all of this.

Then there is Benkei, and the various strains of Buddhism depicted, including a lot of Esoteric Buddhism of the Shingon sect. These are all depicted quite accurately, and just to add a little extra, the movie manages to convey the power of meditation and Ki energy in a way that makes it integral to the story, i.e. it uses magic realism to add an extra dimension to the film but does it in such a way as to make it tactical and menacing.

All-in-all it is filled with fascinating tidbits and rings surprisingly true-to-life for the period. The scenery and the costuming are also completely unmissable and very authentic. The soundtrack is great, very brooding and ominous. I also thought that the actual acting performances were surprisingly good. Benkei is a great brooding anti-hero, Shanao (Yoshitsune)is depicted as a young man testing his limits and growing increasingly drunk on his own power, and Tetsukichi the scavenging sword-smith makes for and interesting depiction of the "common man" and his less than flattering opinion of the killers who fancy themselves his social betters.

As to the plot, to see why it is so good, I really suggest you dig up an old book on Japanese history and see how this retelling turns an almost lighthearted Robin Hood vs Little John story into a gory tale of intrigue, violence and infernal karma.

GOJOE takes a little getting used to at first, but the final result is very satisfying. The tale, about a murderous samurai who seeks to redeem himself by opposing an effeminate, but dangerous samurai, is worth more than a watch. There is a lot at stake here, from physical survival to soulful salvation. The movie may seem a bit similar to other anime-inspired Samurai film at first, but it does eventually delve into more mature/adult territory soon after.

Not to be missed. GOJOE is one of the better samurai movies to come around post-Kurosawa.

8 out of 10

(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detailed review of the movie and reviews of other foreign films)

I happily admit that I'm a sucker for a beautiful film, and sufficiently inventive camera movements and angles can be enough to keep my interest in a fairly long film. Not one the length of Gojoe though, even though it had some of the most remarkable cinematography I've seen since the Korean period piece MUSA. However, Gojoe provides far more than just beautiful images (as does MUSA... don't which to imply a contrast) - it's second greatest strength is superb acting, and a fascinating story with some very dark philosophy. I must admit to being quite unsure what the point was it was trying to make in the end, but it definitely provokes some thoughts along the way. Vague ones, but definitely thoughts :p

One department in which the film could have been better is the action. There's a tremendous amount of bloodletting in the film, but the action is all filmed with hyperkinetic close-ups, and frequently obscured by objects in the foreground. It does create some very intense and impressive visuals, but it would have been nice to see some more actual moves, something to make it more believable that the villains could just wade through entire armies laying waste to everyone.

Still, the film is definitely one of the most interesting and most beautiful films I've seen for quite some time. Recommended!