question on 2 films

[Don Brown]

I saw Owl's Castle at the movies when it came out here in Japan, and 
without subtitles I found it quite a hard slog.  I guess that's usually the 
case with jidaigeki though.  A lot was made of the CG work, but most of the 
shots ended up in the trailer.  Not a bad film by any means, but perhaps 
could have used a bit more action.  No point in having ninja in your film 
if you're not going to use them.
Gojoe I liked a lot, although I had been looking forward to it for a long 
time.  From an objective point of view, it was lacking a certain something. 
 The design, action, costumes, and performances were wonderful (especially 
Ryu Daisuke), but many of the characters were peripheral and underdeveloped 
(such as Nagase Masatoshi's sword collector).  For an Ishii Sogo fan 
though, it was great and I'd strongly recommend it.  Sogo has suggested 
that he felt as if the Wachowski brothers had beaten him to the punch with 
The Matrix, considering his affiliations with William Gibson, so it could 
be said that Gojoe is his reaction to that film.  Never mind all the "cyber 
action" hype surrounding the film though, because it's quite misleading.  
It's an action film with a nice dose of metaphysics to go with the 
swordplay.  By the way, the promotional material for Gojoe claimed it had 
more cuts than Star Wars Episode One, but it had far from an MTV look to it 
(as employed in Samurai Fiction).  Didn't look like your run-of-the-mill 
jidaigeki either.  In short, it's good.  Go see it.
Don Brown
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