“Hey, its wet-willy time”

1993 brought about one more Turtles movie. Only this time, the Jim Henson Creature Shop was not involved. And… Well… nobody really likes it. Like, at all. Sounds like a good enough reason to take a look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

Story
April O’Neil (Paige Turco) visit’s the Turtles spacious underground digs and tells them she’s going on vacation. She also brings some gifts for the gang and an antique scepter that for some reason, starts glowing and April gets thrown through time to Feudal Japan and replaced with Kenshin (Henry Hayashi), the son of a powerful daimyo with daddy issues. Why? Through the age-old storytelling crutch of an ancient prophecy, of course!

Anyway, our heroes Leonardo (Mark Caso & voiced by Brian Tochi), Raphael (Matt Hill & voiced by Tim Kelleher), Donatello (Jim Raposa & voiced once more by Corey Feldman) and Michaelangelo (David Fraser & voiced by Robbie Rist) resolve to use the scepter to go after April and bringing four samurai warriors to New York in the process. Can Splinter (voiced by James Murray) and Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) keep these five samurai out of trouble? Hilarity of course is supposed to ensue (and well, kind of does, since Koteas’ Jones is a welcome return to the series)

Moving on, the Turtles end up in Japan circa 1603 and find out that April’s been captured by the daimyo’s men because of the whole magic thing. The Daimyo, Lord Norinaga (Sab Shimono) is apparently a bad dude, since his army is putting down a rebellious village for…being rebellious I guess. It’s really vague, but it’s the kind of movie where “rebels = good because that’s what Star Wars did.” Anyway, Norinaga forms an uneasy partnership with a much more clearly bad guy: the Englishman Walker (Stuart Wilson, who was the bad guy in Lethal Weapon 3) and his thugs. Walker’s a bit of a dandy and a gun for hire that is really in it to make a profit. He’s got a crew of thugs, led by Niles (John Aylward as one of the funnier characters) and there’s Whit, a dissenting member of the crew that kind of latches on to April that reminds her of Casey Jones (and happens to be played by Koteas as well). The Turtles (who are regarded by the Japanese as fearsome kappa demons, which actually makes a fair bit of sense) rescue April, escape to the village and team up with the rebels and their leader Mitsu (Vivian Wu) who is also Kenshin’s lover. And you can see where the plot goes from here.

There aren’t any really terrible performances, but there aren't any really good performances either.  You can kind of tell that there’s not much heart being poured into it. There aren’t even that many fight scenes compared to the first two films. Still, Michaelangelo & Raphael get some character development spotlight, which is not a bad thing.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Stuart Gillard, you can tell the budget was much lower than the previous outings. The animatronics and Turtle costumes are a definite step down from the Henson creations. There’s also the infamous falling scene from the end of the movie where a character drops off the fortress into the water below and simply vanishes through the miracle of bad editing (though there is a splash sound).

Writing
Characters created by Eastman & Laird and screenplay written by Stuart Gillard. The story runs along on rails rather predictably and the Turtles’ schtick is wearing kind of thin at this point. Some of the comedic bits hit, but more often than not they don’t. Such as all of Donatello's increasingly grating catchphrases and one-liners.

Sound
Original music by John Du Prez yet again, which amps up the Japanese musical cues and the soundtrack also includes ZZ Top’s “Can’t Stop Rockin.”

Conclusion
There’s no way I can ever call Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III a good movie. HOWEVER, it isn’t really as bad as people say it is. It’s bad, but compared to dreck like Robot Holocaust, it’s totally watchable. I will admit that part of it might be nostalgia goggles (I did watch this one quite a few times as a kid), but honestly, I don’t hate it at all, but it does get quite annoying at times.

“It's like being stuck in a bog; it's not easy to pull yourself you once you've fallen in.”

Samurai are always fun to watch, so I’m not really one to turn down an opportunity to do so when it presents itself. Zatôichi monogatari (or Zatôichi 1) was made in 1962 and was the first of almost thirty films featuring the blind swordsman. That right there’s a phenomenon, so what better way to take a look (incredibly lame pun) at where it all started.

Plot
A blind gambler and masseur who also happens to be an expert swordsman arrives at the estate of a rural crime lord/Yakuza. The boss wants Ichi around because a gang war is brewing with the crosstown rivals, who also have a sword master as their guest. Ichi impresses the hell out of his new “boss” and starts orbiting the dirty dealings going on around him. He goes fishing one day and meets the other ronin, and the two become buddies that respect each other quite a lot. However, the gang war becomes inevitable and things get really ugly in the village.

Characters
Zatôichi: Shintaro Katsu plays Blind Ichi. He’s a generally patient man, incredibly competent, and a fantastic swindler when it comes to gambling, and can bisect a lit candle so that both sides have wicks that are still on fire. Ichi’s a badass, plain and simple, and one that is capable of sincere vulnerability and morose reflection on his rather unpleasant life as sword for hire in the world of organized crime. He doesn’t like killing, but the life he finds himself in is one where his particular skills are extremely good at keeping him alive. He doesn’t even use a katana. He uses a straight edged sword cane.

Tatekichi: Michiro Minami plays the henchman more or less assigned to be Ichi’s servant during his stay. He starts off somewhat comical and unimportant, but then you find out that he’s trying to forcibly hook up his sister with a gangster buddy and he’s knocked up a girl in the village. He turns into a complete douche bag when said girl in the village ends up floating in the river soon after and you spend the rest of the movie waiting for his sweet, sweet comeuppance.

Tane: Masayo Banri plays Tate’s goodly sister, a nice gal who is trying not to get dragged back down into the gangster world. She and Ichi take a liking to each other.

Hirate: Shigeru Amachi plays the other swordsman, a formidable looking warrior with a few major issues. He’s from Edo, but apparently left under less than ideal circumstances, and he’s also got consumption (tuberculosis) which is slowly killing him. Considering his problems, its not a surprise that he drinks heavily. Circumstances put him and Zatoichi into positions as rivals, but honestly, they’re the most upstanding, honorable and likable characters in the entire movie.

Visuals/Effects
Director Kenji Misumi filmed it in black and white, which gives the movie a great moody feel (and considering the criminal subject matter, there’s a little bit of a film noir feel thrown in). The story itself builds at a slow boil, with characters introduced and a feeling of the inevitable conflict mounts and mounts until you get some big violence at the end and a climactic duel. Misumi does use a couple of moments where he will have the camera in close on the characters, something happens and it zooms out rapidly to reveal a much larger scene. It’s a great technique and the suddenness of the zoom is a good contrast to the more traditional camera pans and whatnot.

Writing
Kan Shimosawa wrote the original short story that Zatoichi appeared in and Minoru Inuzuka handled the screenplay. Characterizations are great and you really get a feel for how scummy the crooks are and develop real sympathy for the two swordsmen. The story’s also got huevos for not going for the typically expected ending. Sure, some of it is expected, but there are some legitimate tweaks in it that make it memorable.

Sound
The score by Akira Ifukube is used mostly sparingly, for when the movie has its explosive bursts, and its effective.

Conclusion
Zatôichi monogatari is a pretty cool samurai movie. Probably not for everybody because its actually pretty light on action, but the atmosphere, build up and payoff are all really well done. It was a very good movie.


Surprising hard to find a clip of this movie on Youtube.

“It’s not over yet. I may get a captain’s head!”

In 1954, Japanese director Hiroshi Inagaki began a sweeping trilogy focusing on one of Japan’s greatest historical heroes; warrior, philosopher, artist, badass Miyamoto Musashi. The first of these movies, Miyamoto Musashi (or Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto on the American DVD release) tells the origin of the legendary swordsman. Starring Toshiro Mifune, the film series was based on a novel about the man, so liberties were naturally taken, but a figure like Musashi generated a lot of legends about him anyway. So sit down and buckle up, because you’re about to get Musashi’d (he was so badass his name deserves to be a future-perfect verb)

Plot
So a rebellious youth convinces his buddy (who’s betrothed) to run off to war to seek fortune and ADVENTURE! What they find is being on the losing side of the Battle of Sekigahara, where in 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu won a decisive victory that would pave the way for his hegemony over Japan, heralding the end of a long period of civil wars for supremacy. Anyway, injured, our main characters find a small house where a mother and daughter help heal them and then have them fight off some bandits. The women make a play for our hero, but he doesn’t want them, so he leaves. His buddy, finally healed up from his serious wounds, decides to stay with the two ladies as their protector, completely neglecting the fiancée he left back home. Our real hero returns to Miyamoto village where, thanks to his wild behavior, he gets every law official in the area wanting him brought in for punishment. He finally gets captured by a Buddhist priest who seems to have plans for the wild swordsman.

Characters
Takezo/Musashi Miyamoto: Toshiro. Mifune. All right, you probably need more than just that. Takezo is the “wild one” of his village, so much so that his relatives have all disowned him. He runs off to war to seek fortune and glory, survives battle and becomes a drifter. After his buddy decides to abandon his fiancée, Takezo returns to his home village, killing a few guards at a checkpoint. As the town officials try to bring him in, he keeps killing more guards in self defense and hides out in the woods like a bogeyman. Finally captured by a clever Buddhist priest, he gets strung up in a tree for two days to, basically think things over, but he eventually escapes and then gets captured again by the priest, who locks him into an attic full of books, telling him to train and bring himself under control before he earns the name Miyamoto Musashi. He’s quite the badass, but he’s also unbridled and wild, not thinking much through before acting.

Honiden Matahachi: Rentaro Mikuni plays Takezo’s buddy who’s an indecisive little prick. On the one hand he wants to marry his girl, but on the other he wants to follow Takezo to war. Matahachi eventually crosses the line into full douche bag when he tries (and eventually relents) to rape a woman and then abandons his fiancée to follow two shady women to Kyoto, eventually marrying one of them. His mom’s a real bitch too.

Otsu: Kaoru Yachigusa plays Matahachi’s long-suffering ex-fiancée. An orphan in the village and cared for by the town priest, she’s a good girl, honest and true. After Takezo’s return home, she finally learns what became of her jerkass betrothed and starts to grow closer to Takezo.

Priest Takuan Osho: The Buddhist priest in Miyamoto village who takes care of Otsu and later resolves to capture Takezo. A clever chap who’s apparently very well connected with government officials, he captures Takezo, brings him back to town and hangs him in a tree for two days, all while cheerfully countering Takezo’s shouts and promises of bloody vengeance. He just smiles back and says things that are obviously intended to be a lesson for Takezo, who doesn’t really get it. For being patient enough to not only catch the future Musashi, but also for giving the wild swordsman a chance to make something useful of his life, he manages to out-badass Takezo.

Visuals/Effects
Hiroshi Inagaki filmed the movie in color (the quality of which varies from shot to shot because of age) and the movie isn’t so much lush as it is moody. Rain shows up during Sekigahara, creating a hopeless atmosphere, then as Takezo travels around, the lighting and color help set the moods he’s in as he wrestles with himself. The use of shadows in particular is fantastic in this film, and Inagaki set up lots of fantastic shots. The movie is 93 minutes, but the pacing both makes it feel like a longer film that feels short for a long film (an…odd phrase, I realize, but that’s the feeling). The action scenes themselves, while not that prevalent, are brutal and quick, with a wild intensity to them and an “unchoreographed” feel to them, especially when villains find themselves getting “Musashi’d” (Yeah, I’m trying to force a meme here. Indulge me).

Writing
Eiji Yoshikawa wrote the novel, Hideji Hojo wrote the play and Hiroshi Inagaki and Tokuhei Wakao are credited as writers. Whatever. The result is a tightly crafted character piece that tells an interesting origin story for one of the greatest swordsmen in history.

Sound
The original score by Ikuma Dan is not a constant presence in the film, but there are moments of high emotion where it soars dramatically.

Conclusion
Miyamoto Musashi is a very compelling film that is much more of a character drama than straight up action, but it does both of those things well. A lot of loose ends are left over at the end, but the film is clearly meant to be the first chapter in a larger story, so its forgivable. Absolutely recommended as a dramatic foreign period film, and if that doesn’t sell you on it: Toshiro Mifune being nonstop awesome.

Not finding the trailer on Youtube, so here's the IMDB link for it