The Legend & Butterfly

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.

Where to start? How about the amazing beauty that is Japan? The amazing camera work in capturing 16th century Japan. Having spent time in Japan, I know there are many well preserved sites from this era. The creators of this film used them well, not overwhelming the story. Such an epic of war, conquest, rise and downfall. The way Lady No inspired the transformation of Oda from a fun loving playboy to a leader of armies is magical. There is enough comedic relief to downtown the horrors and realities of the time. I kind of loved the pseudo ending and wish things had stopped there. I would probably like to watch it again. I cannot imagine a better cast of professionals who fit the parts well. If you don't select this movie for your watch list, you are cheating yourself.

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.

The life, death and many events around the life of warlord Oda Nobunaga have been the source and inspiration of many movies. In The Legend and Butterfly, we get to see an heavily fictionnalized version of Oda defining years through a different lens, his relationship with Kicho/Nohime, his legal wife, of which not that much is known historically. This allows for a lot of flitting through actual events peperred with a mature love story (which is more of a "relation" between two very different characters than some sort of romance novel), fortunately not shaved down the throat of the audience.

Kimura Takuya professionaly portrays an Oda slowly but surely drifting from a countryside minor warlord to a ruthless borderline cruel master of the country, while Haruka Ayase has a very solid presence on screen as Kicho. A minor grip, the story spans over three decades but the main characters don't seem to age more than three minutes (whereas second roles do seem age a bit... go figure....). Also, there is -a lot- of Nanban (foreign at the time) music instruments being played at various time in the movie, to a point this becomes distracting.

Even if if perfectly works with only a little histoy knowledge, the movie may be appreciated more if one has a basic knowlegde of the events at the time, from the Okehazama battle to the burning of Enryaku temple. Nothing that a quick read from wikipedia can not solve.

Obviously a lot of money has gone into this , from the reconstitution of Azuchi castle to Portuguese ships, the gorgeous settings, etc. It shows, but there arent't many battles on screen so viewers should not expect an action movie.

Overall a surprisingly good flick.