Why so much hype?

Sick Product of a Sick System

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Sword of Doom / Daibosatsu Pass is a fundamentally tonal movie about an inhumanly isolated individual, fencing master Ryunosuke Tsukue, an ostracised man who has become an island, or rather a jagged reef, on which he allows people to be dashed. I think it's quite easy to write him down as either an evil or sociopathic man, however I think the film deals with more complex issues.Ryunosuke is brimful of disdain. His hatred for the way people are, of how compromised and unworthy people become in order to fit in, is seen in several places in the film. Indeed Ryunosuke's exile arises out of his refusal to compromise and betray his code of fencing for the greater good. Many see his actions as provocative, but, like his fencing technique, Kogen Ittō-ryū, Ryunosuke is fundamentally passive until pushed. I have read people interpreting Ryunosuke's actions before his duel with Bunnojo Utsuki as designed to provoke his opponent, however in my opinion he was merely acting out of contempt for others' capacity for dishonour; contempt for one woman's easy virtue, and another man's illegal tactic.His worldview reaches perfect expression during his militia's meeting with Lord Kamio, who earns a degree of respect from Ryunosuke, when he honestly and brazenly admits to the audience of hypocritical fanatics he controls, that he is not interested in politics. Serizawa's faction of the Shinsengumi, which Ryunosuke joins, were known as the wolves of Mibu, and are shown in this film as being ambitious agitators operating under an arbitrary flag, with only nominal political pretensions. Incidentally, Serizawa Kamo, and Kondo Isami, both characters in this film, were actual historic leaders of the Shinsen Group.Every killing Ryunosuke performs in the film can be linked to the death wish of his victim. So despite the ease in which he cleaves flesh, I don't see him as an anarchical madman, more an amplifier of negative behaviour, a quasi-religious force.The movie has supernatural elements, too late Ryunosuke begins to realise that his life is filled with rather too many coincidences and that he is being driven mad by his own nihilism and its karmic response. Sword of Doom is a hideous film, with a superb central performance from Tatsuya Nakadai. Watch it with the awe that it deserves.

All I can say immediately after watching this movie was WOW. It left me speechless. Very good movie staring Tatsuya Nakadai as "Ryunosuke Tsukue" a swordsman who has lost himself to his sword and its thirst for blood. (hence sword of doom). I have only known Tatsuya Nakadai previously from Yojimbo where he plays the prat with the gun. But this movie gave me new found respect for him as an actor. His portrayal as the sociopath "Ryunosuke" with his wide open unblinking eyes, expression and mannerism. The body language in the end when he goes crazy. The sword fight scenes are very good. And the ending. WHOA!!! I will not spoil it for you. Do not read any spoilers and just watch the movie. The ending will leave you speechless.

Most of the comments have focused on direction. I'm more interested in the acting. Naturally, that is a function of how the director shapes performances on the set and in the editing suite, but the director has to have something to work with.Tatsuya Nakadai has, for his long career as a performer and teacher, a justifiably great reputation. But there's an arc to his development as an actor that has him starting out by chewing scenery as a younger performer and gradually becoming a decent, and then sublime, actor.Sometimes in his early performances a director was able to rein in and/or harness Nakadai's excesses to good effect. For instance, I don't think Kurosawa brought him under control at all in "Sanjuro," but managed to make the best of his hamminess in "Yojimbo," largely by having him channel Elvis Presley's swagger and sneer.The situation is similar in "Sword of Doom," except in this case Nakadai is channeling James Dean's brooding intensity, but with not nearly the subtlety James Dean was famous for. That sort of subtlety comes a lot later in Nakadai's career, most notably in "Kagemusha," when Kurosawa, or Nakadai himself, found his volume knob and turned it down. We don't realize how fortunate we were to have Dean in full-blown genius mode from the beginning. He was a preternaturally old soul. Nakadai just had to age the normal way in order to uncover that inner core that makes a screen performance transcendent.

I won't go on at length about the film, because others have already done so, and well enough.I will add my opinion about the ending, though.Let me begin by saying that I understand the film was intended to be the first part of a trilogy, and so the unresolved ending could easily be attributed to a "cliffhanger" ending that might be resolved in a second film; however, we don't get the rest of that trilogy, so we must contend with the film as a complete work of art.With that in mind, I propose that the unresolved ending of the film - the sudden, freeze-frame ending, still within the throes of an unfinished combat - is meant to suggest this: :::Ryunosuke has actually died at some unknown point during the final sword battle; what we are in the process of observing, then, is Ryunosuke in his own real and private Hell, an afterlife of endless opponents, brutal killings, and constant injuries to his own body, none enough to kill him, but enough to cause him pain and torment:::The reasons I see to accept this idea are several: 1) The inn is now on fire; fire is an easy metaphor for Hell (certainly for Western audiences, but possibly for Eastern ones as well). As to that fire, no one is responding to it directly, as people would tend to do if a well-populated inn was burning. There is no sound or image of commotion, shouts, running for exits, etc., as we usually see during burning-building scenes, even when there is a battle going on. 2) The scene immediately before the final battle is focused on ghosts and hauntings - it begins with Omatsu telling the tale of the courtesan who killed herself in the now-unused room, and quickly proceeds to multiple images of Ryunosuke fighting the ghosts of his own victims.3) The room that Ryunosuke is in, and proceeds to tear apart before the attack of the samurai, becomes almost supernatural - the curtain walls he cuts through are endless, repeating, circling back upon themselves - he cannot escape this room, even by cutting his way through and out. Then, the rooms of the inn he fights his way through become endless, maze-like, and repetitive, with no occupants except the endlessly attacking samurai.4) The final freeze-frame suggests to the audience that there is no logical ending to this scene; indeed, it never ends.So there you have my interpretation of the ending of "Sword of Doom". If you like it and ever quote it, please give me, and this review, the credit!