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It seems like it’s time once more to grab some Japanese film. Especially after the passing of Tatsuya Nakadai. This gives us an excuse to go grab one of his films. So let’s grab the three hour Akira Kurosawa film, Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior(1980).
Set before the unification of Japan, we have Tatsuya playing Shingen Takeda and his perfect double. Shingen’s regular body double found a criminal that looks like Shingen’s twin. A good thing too as lord Takeda get’s mortally wounded and begs his generals and the other double to keep the peace for at least three years. This is to keep Oda Nobunaga from becoming emboldened. Spoiler from history, this does not work out in the long run and ends in tragedy.
Weltall has Lions for Lambs[2007]. Do you remember the Global War on Terror(GWOT)? Well this movie is the fevered, self fellating movie that peppered the cinema back then. Meryl Streep is a reporter who just isn’t buying a story about army rangers being wounded in Afganistan. She’s going to get to the bottom of things even if that means grilling Tom Cruise as a senator. And you know he’s not one of the good ones because he has a flag pin on his lapel.
Tim has Inn of Evil(1971). A film by Masakai Kobayashi set during the feudal period when Japan was isolated. It’s set at an Inn where a bunch of lowlifes hang around all day. Each of them has their own story behind their troubled past that is revealed over the course of events. The youngest among them is trying to raise money to buy his childhood sweetheart out of prostitution. This tugs at the heartstrings of the rest and they decide to do a job to donate money to him so the couple can live happily ever after.
