Goemon Film Review

This is directed by Kazuaki Kiriya who in his debut helmed Casshern. This was his follow up film. I loved Casshern. It has been years since I saw it, but it is stuck in my brain. It was like nothing else I had ever seen. A sci-fi epic fantasy stuffed with imagination and an abundance of digital CGI. Playfully drenched in saturated colors mixed with charcoal de-colorization. It is sensory overload in which narrative took a back seat to the visuals. A lot of people I have learned since, hate it. And I get that. Well, five years after Casshern, Kazuaki came back with this historical fantasy that in style very much follows his previous film. Astonishingly visual with top to bottom CGI to such an extent that I don't know how much of it is real. Not a lot, I suspect. Otherwise, it would cost more than a small country. For the most part, I am not partial to excessive CGI and have lost interest in the Marvel films for that sin, and admittedly this film becomes exhausting in its two hour run time, but damn, parts of it are so cool from the detailed designs, costumes, dances, landscapes and large action set pieces.

The film is set in the Sengoku era in the late 1500s in which Toyotomi Hideyoshi has become the ruler after the assassination by forcing the seppuku of Oda Nobunaga. Besides the fantastical aspects of the film, it also takes huge liberties with the facts. The main characters though are all historical personages. Hideyoshi is frantically trying to find a box, but before he is able to, the legendary thief Goemon (Yosuke Eguchi) breaks into a mansion and fights his way out with the box. Later we find out he is a trained Shinobi who had been under Nobunaga. Now a thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. Goemon was a true historical figure who has become a folk hero and has been the subject of film, manga and kabuki. As a Shinobi, he is able to jump extremely high and fight like a killing machine. Another Shinobi, Saizo (Takao Osawa) is hired to find the box and kill the robber. Goemon and Saizo had trained together as children. Saizo is a fictional folklore character and shows up in film and manga.

There are various conspiracies and palace intrigue going on that fill up the film - an assassination attempt on Hideyoshi, a coup, a document that suggests that Hideyoshi was behind the killing of Nobunaga, the lovely Chacha (Ryôko Hirosue - the girl in Wasabi) being pressured to becoming a mistress of Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu waiting patiently for his chance to rule Japan. Even Hattori Hanzō shows up. It is a bombardment of images, characters and ferocious action. And possibly mostly CGI trickery. But if you are going to go in that direction, do it like this - with vision, imagination and commitment.