Absolutely Fantastic

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I watch movies for my lifetime and i saw the biggest crap and really good ones, to masterpieces of filmmaking. Of course, taste is an individual thing. Sometimes, or mostly, you stumble over great things, something you did not expect. Like in this movie's case. Little village gay policeman has to catch a wolf, striving around the village. He "feeds" the wolf anonymously, to keep the creature away from town. Soon he mets a bizarre "homeless person", dressed like the killer from the 1st Silence of the lambs movie. There is a deeper meaning to this, because the policeman is gay, and the homeless one represents his sexual fantasy. I really do not want to say much about the plot, because the movie left me speechless several times. Damn, this is a good one. It is to me on the same level of coolness, like "Tears of kali", even beyond that. The movie runs nearly 80 minutes, get your copy and waste your time for the good. A super 7 out of 10.

The description of this film (a police officer encounters a woman with a sword running around killing people) sounded dumb, but despite my better judgment, I wasted an hour and a half on this schlock. This film is by parts horror, suspense, and drama, and sadly fails at each one. The protagonist is Jakob, a somewhat mild mannered cop who is trying to deal with the rash of wolf attacks/sightings in his small town. He puts out meat for the wolf in an attempt to keep the wolves at bay (which as one man points out is stupid since what will happen when Jakob ceases to put the meat out). Little does Jakob know, but his putting out the meat has somehow summoned a man who dresses as a woman and has a long samurai sword with which he slices and dices up half the town it seems. Compounding the stupidity of the plot is the fact that Jakob gets a package in the mail which he nerves opens until he gets a phone call from a mysterious stranger who tells him the package is his. Jakob delivers the package in the middle of night to, you guessed it, the man/woman and the package contains the samurai sword. Half hour is spent with Jakob as he chases the sword wielding he/she (all without any other cops responding). The taunting dialog seems to suggest that at some point there will be some interesting revelation: maybe the samurai is Jakob's alter ego or something? But in the end, the denouement spirals into some homo erotic type of ambiguous ending that makes no sense. Anyhow, save yourself the time and agony and pass on this one.

I saw this film at the Imagine (sf/horror/fantasy) filmfestival Amsterdam 2014. The title may attract the wrong audience, but that is the only problem I have with this movie. It focuses on the Samurai sword that is carried all the time by the transvestite, who is the primary trigger of all events following. He and local policeman Jakob are the obvious main characters that carry the story from start to finish. But the sword is far from the lead weapon, due to very prominent roles of confusion, surprise and deviant behavior to augment the proceedings. The latter three story elements make it difficult to tell much about the story, fearing literally spoiling all the inherent fun of this movie.Nice are some interwoven plots. A perfect example is the motor gang, seemingly appearing in the beginning as a side issue. This group unexpectedly gets an important role later on, when grouping around the transvestite in an obvious attempt to mock him. Little do they know what disaster is before them. There is a second interwoven plot around Jakob's mother, but I better confine myself to hinting that it is useful to keep an eye on her too.All in all, very good entertainment full of unexpected events, perfectly capable to keep our attention throughout. In the Q&A we learned that it is "just" a master thesis project, still more reason to admire the end result. This film ended 23rd (out of 43) for the audience award, with average score 7.20.

I just saw this film at the Frightfest London, and it is certainly one of best films in this year's selection. Very interesting characters and a story that is captivating but remains unclear and unresolved in just the right way. Pit Bukowski starring in the title role as the "samurai" is one of the most enigmatic movie villains I have seen in a while. The director said that "The Hitcher" is one of his main influences and this certainly shows. So if you want to see a horror film with a little more substance that the average "Slasher Flick" seek this one out. I am amazed that this was done in Germany. The mostly state-financed film scene there normally creates a lot of "worthy" films that focus on social relevance above everything else. This film definitely brights some fresh air into German filmmaking and I hope it makes it into international distribution.