Japanese animator Masaaki Yuasa mined a variety of ecstatic hand-drawn styles in this Rock-and-Roll take on feudal Japan. Just too much of it. It opens by joining a blind musician and a deformed dancer who travel thru a war torn 12th century Japan with their Heavy Metal-lite concerts*, stunning their fast-growing audiences with catchy/repetitive call-and-response songs. Just too much of it. Eventually, one of them will write immortal verses that still live today as a precursor to ‘Noh’ theater. Just too much of it. The first half of the film is such a riotous visual treat, you hardly mind the stop-and-start (mostly stop) narrative. (Pat yourself on the back for figuring out the bit where a cursed sword blinds the singer when but a child and kills his father.) We never do get a satisfying explanation of the masked deformed dancer. (He looks and dances like one of those blow-and-deflate balloon men you see at storefronts.) By the second half, the songs just seem to go on and on while the Shogun Kingdom, after seeming to win the civil wars, starts trying to control the artists’ agenda. Maybe Japanese audience know the backstory by heart or were provided with playbooks & scorecards. (There’s a smidgen of fact behind this.) But Western audiences have nothing latch onto but the admirable drawing styles. And even they pall faster than Yuasa is able to change his style & palette. (NOTE: The English language track proves considerably less exhausting to watch.)
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *If only singer Tomona would end his set by smashing his biwa (a traditional strung, guitar-like instrument) as if he were a 12th century Pete Townshend.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Instead, the first two seasons of SAMURAI JACK/’01-‘02. Great music, great animation, great characterizations & vocals. Gorgeous without being pretentious.
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