Ako-Jo danzetsu (1978)

Réalisateur:

Kinji Fukasaku

Writers:

Kôji Takada (screenplay)
Kôji Takada (story)

Release Date:

28 octobre 1978 (Japan)

Genre:

Action | Aventure | Drame | History

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

47 Ronin | Samurai

Awards:

1 nomination

Avis des utilisateurs:

Seriously awesome movie.

Ensemble

Sonny Chiba	...	Kazuemon Fuwa (as Shinichi 'Sonny' Chiba)
Kinnosuke Nakamura	...	Kuranosuke Ohishi (as Kinnosuke Yorozuya)
Tsunehiko Watase	...	Heihachiro Kobayashi
Masaomi Kondo	...	Hashimoto
Toshirô Mifune	...	Tsuchiya
Kyôko Enami	...	Ukibashi
Kasho Nakamura
Shinsuke Mikimoto
reste de la distribution par ordre alphabétique:
Shinsuke Ashida	...	Shikibe
Jun Fujimaki	...	Yajuemon
Takuya Fujioka	...	Kurobei Ohno
Seizo Fukumoto
Mieko Harada	...	Hatsu Hashimoto
Nobuo Kaneko	...	Kira
Yoshi Kato	...	Yahei Horibe
Hiroki Matsukata	...	Denhachiro Tamon
Tôru Minegishi	...	Yasubei Horibe
Yoshiko Mita	...	Akuri
Kensaku Morita	...	Jujiro
Sanae Nakahara	...	Todano tsubone
Mikio Narita	...	Kato
Yôko Natsuki	...	Osen
Ken Nishida	...	Daigagu Asano
Mariko Okada	...	Riku Ohishi
Junkichi Orimoto	...	Tokubei
Hideji Otaki	...	Yamada
Teruhiko Saigo	...	Asano
Yûsuke Satô	...	Yagashira
Harumi Sone	...	Torii
Mizuho Suzuki	...	Narrator
Maki Tachibana	...	Shino Ohtaka
Tetsuro Tamba	...	Yanagisawa
Ryo Tamura	...	Uesugi
Minori Terada	...	Gengo Ohtaka
Go Wakabayashi	...	Araki
Shôji Yasui	...	Uemon

Autre(s) titre(s) :

Last of the Ako Clan (International: English title) (literal title)
Swords of Vengeance (USA) (video title)
The Fall of Ako Castle (USA)

Durée:

159 min

Pays:

Japan

Langue:

Japonais

Couleur:

Couleur

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Son:

Mono

Company:

Toei Kyoto

Goofs:

Factual errors: The movie version has all forty-seven Ronin committing seppuku at the end. Only forty-six did so. One was pardoned by the Shogun. He lived to age seventy-eight and died a natural death. He is buried with his forty-six comrades at the famous temple of Sengaku-ji.

Seriously awesome movie.

I was a fan of The Shogun's Samurai. So you can imagine my reaction when I was at the movie store and saw Big Pappa Yagyuu on the cover of a different movie. I took a gander at the back to get the synopsis and I immediately knew I NEEDED to buy this. It is pretty much the same cast as Shogun's Samurai, it has Sunny Chiba, Toshiro Mifune, the same director and pretty much all the same co-stars. If you DID like Shogun's Samurai, you will probably like this one a lot more. I know I did.

This is A lot longer than Shogun's Samurai at just under 3 hours, but it is definitely for good reason. This movie is a film rendition of one of the most famous tales in Japanese folk lore which is the story of the 47 ronin who willingly went to their death to avenge their lord who pretty much got the shaft after attacking another lord in the shoguns castle. The first 2 hours involve only a few fights but it isn't that big of an issue because it is a good story and it has cool camera shots. This part of the movie wont blow you away, but I still really liked it because I'm kind of a dork and the story really interested me. The last 45 minutes or so is a giant battle with LOTS of samurai sword action that apparently was choreographed by Sonny Chiba.

There are only a couple of issues I had with this movie. For one, Sonny Chiba only had a very minor role in it which was kind of sad because he is really bad ass(but when he IS in it, he is laying a serious beat down on whatever bad guy is in the shot with him). And the other issue is they could have probably trimmed out 30 minutes worth of footage. I say this because sometimes the camera would wait way too long to finish a scene with a close up on an actors face.

All in all, very solid samurai flick. Any fan of Sonny, Samurai Movies, or folk lore(this is pretty much the Japanese equivalent of the Alamo story, according to my Japanese friend) will probably really like this movie assuming they have 3 hours to kill. I liked it even more than I liked The Seven Samurai which is saying a lot, possibly because I like Sonny Chiba, and it had a lot better use of music which made some of the scenes a lot more immersive.