While working out this morning i started watching what I thought was an Akira Kurosawa film. Shows how much i know. Despite being known for action cinematography ahead of his time, Kurosawa did not do anything with the famed Musashi character, and a trilogy of Samurai movies (on netflix) have nothing to do with the guy. For whatever reason, I was confusing the Sanshuro Sugata films with Miyamoto Musashi films; maybe even Lone Wolf and Cub to some degree, just because the archetype is there. Dumb American moment? Likely. Either way, I got roughly halfway through the film when I noticed the theme; Musashi was being betrayed by everyone... and I mean EVERYONE. Any time it was convenient to slander the guy in order to get ahead or save face, people did. This seems to be the constant sentiment of the toxic male nowadays, but I was surprised to see that it's been a theme for so long. Somehow, Musashi always makes the right choice, always pushes women away and wants nothing to do with them, his whole family refers to him as ruthless or lawless, and yet all the guy does is the right thing on camera. How does that work? The lens is only capturing an idealized (and very easily mappable) protagonist who doesn't have much depth outside of being betrayed. Granted, this film was made back in the 50's and I haven't finished it yet. I can't help but feel the romanticization of the male persona as being persecuted at every turn while somehow being an altruistic sentinel isn't accurate of anyone alive. We see examples of weaker men through Matahachi, a flirty priest, bandit warlords, and other assorted "lesser-man" tropes. It's also kinda cool to see how the fight choreography is NOT clean. What few fights the film has are rough, desperate, and noticeably of poor form. It actually seems like these are people forced into fighting, not genuinely seeking a challenge on the battlefront. All in all, the film ended up boring me, admittedly. I sought something a bit more intense and less "idealized-testoerone-dream". Takezo has men aspiring to be him, women throwing themselves at his feet, priests vying for his dedication, and bandits fearing his tenacity. It's like a 1950's Samurai version of Good Will Hunting, but instead of going to see about a girl, the guy wants to redeem himself by becoming a true samurai. It never feels like he has a persona, but I guess character development is a bigger thing in the latter half of the 20th century. It wasn't awful, but knowing that films like Kurosawa's Rashomon was around 4 years earlier makes it a bit hard to entertain. I think it's just a sign that we always had movies like Die Hard, which might be well remembered by the people of their era, but don't really have anything major to say about the human experience or condition long term. These shorter exposures of humanity are easily replaced and recognized for what they are enough that a new viewer would get 15 minutes in and realize "ah... I've seen this one, even if it wasn't THIS one." #kurosawa #film #samurai #movies #masculinity #critic #netflix