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Featured review
What Survives
Denjirô Ôkôchi is a monk wandering around Japan. When he arrives in Yagyu, everyone there wants to practice dueling with him. He's not interested, so they play with the next wanderer, kill him, and tell his brother and sister it was Ôkôchi who did it. Now everyone wants to kill him.
Originally 85 minutes, the copy of this chambara -- samurai flick -- I looked at was 54 minutes. Given a release date of May 1945, there was undoubtedly a lot of propaganda in it, later removed. Given the blame on the blameless hero, I suspect it was an early example of the legend of the Second World War that would become popular in Japanese movies and even one high-school text book: Japan was just going along, minding its own business, harming no one, when the US came along and nuked it, just like Godzilla! This was three months before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit with atomic bombs, but already propaganda was urging people to die by the millions when the US invaded in the projected Operation Olympic, which was expected to result in as many as ten million American injuries and deaths.
What survives is some battles involving some of the biggest action stars of the era, some nice location shooting, and some good fight choreography. And a plot that makes little sense.
Originally 85 minutes, the copy of this chambara -- samurai flick -- I looked at was 54 minutes. Given a release date of May 1945, there was undoubtedly a lot of propaganda in it, later removed. Given the blame on the blameless hero, I suspect it was an early example of the legend of the Second World War that would become popular in Japanese movies and even one high-school text book: Japan was just going along, minding its own business, harming no one, when the US came along and nuked it, just like Godzilla! This was three months before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit with atomic bombs, but already propaganda was urging people to die by the millions when the US invaded in the projected Operation Olympic, which was expected to result in as many as ten million American injuries and deaths.
What survives is some battles involving some of the biggest action stars of the era, some nice location shooting, and some good fight choreography. And a plot that makes little sense.
helpful•10
- boblipton
- Jul 15, 2021
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- Duel at Yagyu Valley
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- Runtime1 hour 11 minutes
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