With a single-take fight sequence running 77 minutes, what are the odds Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 isn’t largely a gimmick? The answer aligns with the second half of the title.
Given that those 77 minutes constitute 84.6% of the Japanese film, the setup is as thin as the blades the samurai wield: In a prearranged duel, swordsman Musashi Miyamoto (Versus’ Tak Sakaguchi) faces hundreds and hundreds of students and mercenaries of the Yoshioka clan. Once the swords start slinging, the camera keeps going as Musashi keeps fighting, pausing only for gulps of water. He wipes his nose. It rains. And that’s all, folks!
It’s only natural your question to be, “Can they really sustain that for more than an hour?” The answer is yes and no, in that yes, they do, but no, it doesn’t hold your attention. In fact, the flick grows extremely trying within its first few minutes of battle. Things might be different if Death Trance director Yûji Shimomura had swayed to an extreme, whether to go for complete realism or leap over the top, Shogun Assassin-style.
Instead, he stays on neutral ground, where every spray of digital blood looks pixelated and the men surrounding Musashi do that thing heavies in kung-fu movies tend to do, which is exhibit wait-your-turn hesitancy as they rock back and forth, hoping to trick your peripheral vision into telling your brain more action is happening than actually is. Watching is like attending a Civil War re-enactment: Maybe it’s fun to participate?
It’s not clear whether we’re supposed to root for or against Musashi, given that he kills a child — a fraction of a second after cleanly bisecting a butterfly — in the prologue. The epilogue is the only section of Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 that lives up to the hype; those balls-out final five minutes crackle with more motion, energy and engagement than everything before it. Then again, I might not be so spry after sitting on the shelf for nearly a decade, either. —Rod Lott