2003 - Am I too old for ARAGAMI?

The director Ryuhei Kitamura, took a dare, make a film about a duel, between two men and only use one set. Kitamura is from the razzle dazzle school of filmmaking, lots of stylish action, editing and wild camera angles mixed with a rather cynical tone. This is a movie that in theory should have been fun for a young film geek, lots of samurai sword fighting, flying and jumping around, yet the movie seemed mighty dull to me. I sat through at least 45 minutes of talking, lots of talking. Kitamura tried to set up a situation where a samurai does battle with an immortal god in some sort of an epic battle. When the two combatants finally get around to actually hacking away at each during the big sword fight it was nothing I hadn't seen before. Hate to sound like an oldster but Kurosawa's "Sanjuro" sword fights were a lot more exciting and that film was made over 40 years ago. Kitamura kept the film to about 75 minutes, but it seemed mighty long. Kitamura had better luck with his Godzilla film "Godzilla: Final Wars" which was a lot more entertaining.