Post by Fox in the Snow on Nov 20, 2018 11:13:09 GMT
Killing the new film from cult genre director Shinya Tsukamoto is a stunning exercise in pure cinema.
A young samurai yet to prove himself in battle is approached by a mysterious wondering Ronin who presents him with an opportunity.
Featuring suitably tense and creepy sound design and sublime camerawork, Tsukamoto’s exercise in restraint distils the samurai film to subtle, moody atmospherics and spare philosophising punctuated by a series of cold, expressionistic action sequences.
Abstract, near monochromatic and set almost entirely in a gorgeous single location, a small shack surrounded by an eerie wood, it makes an excellent companion piece to his similarly reductive take on the war film (2014’s re-imagining of Fires on the Plain). I would also recommend it to fans of NWR’s Valhalla Rising, though not quite as “trippy”, it mines a similar vein of arty-minimalism.
9/10
A young samurai yet to prove himself in battle is approached by a mysterious wondering Ronin who presents him with an opportunity.
Featuring suitably tense and creepy sound design and sublime camerawork, Tsukamoto’s exercise in restraint distils the samurai film to subtle, moody atmospherics and spare philosophising punctuated by a series of cold, expressionistic action sequences.
Abstract, near monochromatic and set almost entirely in a gorgeous single location, a small shack surrounded by an eerie wood, it makes an excellent companion piece to his similarly reductive take on the war film (2014’s re-imagining of Fires on the Plain). I would also recommend it to fans of NWR’s Valhalla Rising, though not quite as “trippy”, it mines a similar vein of arty-minimalism.
9/10
