DaViD´82

I strongly do not recommend this to sushi lovers! They may well end up spending all the family savings on the journey to get just this one dinner in the restaurant with no toilets in the Tokyo subway. If sushi is not so high on your list of priorities you can watch it with no fear, because it’s mainly about the old-world Japanese demeanor which is aimed at constant self-improvement through their absolute attention to detail and infinite humility. Despite having been the very best in their field for decades. But have you heard what our cooking celebrities have to say to this exceptional documentary about the “philosophy of sushi" as practiced by the Ono family (with Jiro as a leader who made it all the way into a sci-fi comic book by the culinary adventurer Bourdain) in one very special restaurant that got three stars in the Michelin guide? Zdeněk Pohlreich: Well I’ve never seen anything like that before! Look at him how he’s touching it with his dirty mitts and has the cheek to stare straight into your face, less than an inch away from you, watching you eat! Jiří Babica: Hmm, interesting, I must say. But unnecessarily snobbish ingredients. I would add ketchup and a frankfurter sausage to the rice. And in fact ketchup instead of the rice and the frankfurter because ketchup on ketchup blends nicely together and it’s a yummy treat which you can have every single god given day. Jaroslav Sapík: Excellent! Delicious! But where is the main course with six dumplings? And where is the beer to wash it down? VydroBoušek: He is too grumpy, can’t speak a word of Czech and how can you call this cooking? - It’s served raw! But you must admit that the funny activity – massaging an octopus for an hour - was the high point of this week. So 5 points for him (which isn’t enough to win), so the winner is Jarka from Velká Bíteš with her traditional meatloaf. Roman Vaněk: That seems odd. Ten years of hard labor day in, day out, just to learn the basics? Yo, losers… Come to Prakul, and we’ll teach him everything he needs to know about sushi in just five hours, for just four thousand crowns!

Gosha closes the notional circle started by Leone’s admitted remake of Yojimbo, which initiated the creation of the spaghetti western, only for Gosha to be inspired by Leone’s spaghetti western and transfer it to the environment of chanbara in another (not admitted) remake of Yojimbo. Gosha copied the then still rather coarse style of Leone’s debut so closely that it’s not to the movie’s benefit. He is such an original and able director that he doesn’t need to copy anybody else’s style. But it’s hard to blame him when it’s in all its briefness and style straightforwardness so entertaining and visually delightful.

Like Leone changed the face of the western once and for all, Gosha once and for all changed the face of chanbara samurai cinema. And in a way not too unlike how Leone achieved this in the West at around the same time. Although in his debut, Gosha took the first step on his departure from the classic, honorable, bushido-respecting ascetic samurais, it is here that he brings his revolutionary approach to the genre to absolute perfection. The ends justify the means applies at every given moment for the clans and also for all the characters who are brought together by a gold-rich river. In the end, it doesn’t matter whether you take it as holding up a mirror to society (and that’s is certainly what Gosha intended) or a pure genre movie with no overlap. It is perfect in both positions. It also glitters with highly polished, golden directing and with an incredible sense for contrasting black and white compositions full of wonderful exterior tableaus, playing with camera angles and perfectly choreographed duels with long, single-shot sequences with brief cuts from the main protagonist’s point of view. Simply a gem (not just of this genre).

Spaghetti chanbara. The affinity between samurai and western genres is well-known and proven many times (after all, there is no need to go far for examples; see some of Gosha's previous works or many western remakes of chanbara classics), but perhaps never before has there been such a pure-blooded samurai movie that is also so very "spaghetti". The camera work, the music, the protagonist… everything but the setting is a typical spaghetti western. And despite the sometimes strange composition of scenes and unnecessarily intense drums playing at the end, it is an excellent spaghetti western in which Gosha is truly enjoying compositions full of endless icy plains whipped by the wind, downpours, mud and snowy wastes by a stormy sea. Everything is rounded off with a delicious final reckoning which is enriched by a whiff of reality unprecedented in genre films: rubbing hands together to warm them up during a duel.

An Iñárritu-esque movie in the form of a Kinder Surprise; it also offers three (un)similar things in one package. Tremendously powerful in many aspects; from the details like "wearing shabby t-shirts inside out" to building a dense atmosphere. What spoils the enthusiasm somewhat is the third act, which is not bad in itself, but still crouches deep in the shadow of the opening two acts. It is schematic, predictable, and somewhat didactic. Which, since it is meant to close the circle, is a little unfortunate. Quite a little bit.

Bushido was... And is no more. Something that Rōnin Shiba knows well, but refuses to accept. He's kind of a naïve idealist. A bit too much of one. Gosha's first movie proves that it is true (not only in our country) that it is not a good idea to cut off your nose to spite your face. And above all that no good deeds go unpunished was, is, and will be an eternal truth. The plot is straightforward, but certainly not for a moment stupid or without ideas, since the director intersperses beautifully shot duels and looks that could kill with the different perspectives of several samurai (even fallen Rōnins) on questions of honor, duty, personal responsibility, oppression of the weak, or the uselessness of all actions. A slightly more cynical variation on the Seven Samurai. Sort of. P.S.: I would be very interested to see Gosha's series of the same name, on which he based his feature prequel...

Of all of Usagi’s wonderful comic-book shorts, to choose to adapt this one - now that’s bold. But what is more than bold is to choose the most annoying voice possible for this pushy kid. This poor old, endearing, long-eared guy really didn’t deserve that. Understandably, the fact that Toshiro Mifune doesn’t dub Usagi (although for logical reasons) does nothing for the overall effect. And so I wouldn’t be surprised if he took his daisho and went to discuss this insult with somebody. P.S.: I recommend reading Usagi with Morricone playing in the background; you have two guesses why.

Glistening vampires, macabre children, a kid of the Lovecraft brood and drunken craving for spaghetti; tons of spaghetti. But where did they all go to? Ingenious, full of wisecracks, hard-hitting, action-packed and really witty... The best possible tribute to (not only) penny-press comic books far and wide.

Stoker is living proof that you can bake a good cake even from story that is a crock of runny shit; and luckily it’s not just about individual memorable scenes (even though the shower, piano four hands and pencil sharpening will stick in your head for sure), but about the overall disturbing atmosphere, Parker’s directing superiority and the Mia/Goode duo. But Wentworth Miller should stick to prison escapes.

A space opera animated western, the spiritual successor of He-Man with a sheriff with the power to use the strength of animals through their souls (strength like a bear, eyes like the goshawk) and on top of all that he owns a blue “Native American" horse who is crazy about big guns. But it sounds better than it really is; you see the at first sight entertaining concept basically starts and unfortunately also finishes with the theme tune. I didn’t enjoy it even as a young lad and the only reason why I used to watch it more less regularly was the gift that I got one Christmas (a long time before I found out about the existence of the series) - an action figure set of the main heroes (my favorite toy at the time, I have no idea where it’s gone now) and a cool lenticular transforming sheriff’s badge, ha!