Yu Haifeng Keiji Kameyama Takaya Kano Masaaki Kimura Kazuo Nakanishi Zhou Yanqin Tatsuro Hatanaka Nobuo Miyazaki Hiroyuki Yamada Koichi Watanabe Keiichi Yoshizaki Marie-Gabrielle Stewart Tatsumi Yoda Minoru Toizumi

Yes, Bernard CANDYMAN Rose directed a Japanese-language samurai film. It's about a lord making his samurai run a 36-mile foot race to toughen them up, and the way various characters try to use this opportunity to achieve their dreams. I'll admit it: the way the different stories and the emotional arcs and the action *and the sporting event* all come together at the same time straight up made the tears start pouring. Other reviews seem pretty mixed, so maybe I'm a weirdo, but I think this movie is straight up beautiful. Maybe my favorite of last year.

Bernard Rose goes to Japan to make a formally accomplished very oddball samurai fllm. Some fine swordplay plenty of good touches, commentary on incoming westernization, solid cast. Thefilm exist in a suspended tradition and makes that a strength.

After doing quite a bit of research, the basis for this film was the Japanese Marathon, which is still run annually today. It was started as a footrace put in place by the Annaka feudal lord to train the mind and bodies of his warriors. Everything else in the story seems to be heavily fictionalized for our entertainment.