An Actor's Revenge
1963
Directed by Kon Ichikawa
Okay, what the fuck.
I don't think I have ever been so confused about the plot in a movie. It got to the point where I didn't know what gender the characters were. I would blame it on my hilariously awful subtitles (I think at one point someone announced that there was an "elephant wall" and because no one acted alarmed, that is probably a bit off) but I have been able to follow plots even without dialogue before. I tried to look to The Book for some clarification about what was going on but it just further confused me by saying that the director threw in distorted visuals and cartoon bubbles. What?? When did that happen? How did I miss that? Was I high?
Usually when I fail this hard at watching a film (which you might be surprised to learn is something you can fail at but I have learned that I can pretty much fail at anything, no matter how simple it is), I would try to watch it again, but mine seems like the best version you can get for a reasonable price.
So I earned my checkmark for the list, but honestly I am walking away completely baffled.
RATING: ***--(???)
Interesting Facts:
Tribute to actor Kazuo Hasegawa.
So I have finally caught up with where I am on the List.
ReplyDeleteI think you should try watching this again with proper subtitles. It is not too hard to follow and it is quite hillarious. It is a "lone guy againsts the system, revenging the murder of his father" theme, but instead of Hamlet or Charles Bronson we get a Japanese Kabuki actor in drag... who is also a master swordsman and hot with the girls... awesome.
Hmmm I might consider it!
DeleteI had a tough time finding a version of this with usable subtitles. I think the problem was that there are different edits, possibly around whether some brief credits at the beginning are included or not, which throws the whole thing several seconds out of sync and I couldn't get it right with technical delays.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, found a workable version in the end. It all makes sense, but is mildly zany so wouldn't necessarily be easy to piece together if you weren't watching it properly.
All that said, I'm still not sure what I make of it or whether I enjoyed it or not. Maybe you had it about right with three stars one way or another.