Sekigahara (2017)

Needs a prerequisite on Japanese history during the Sengoku era before watching the movie

I've been wanting to watch this movie for soooo long! Being a fan of Japanese history AND a fan of Okada Junichi, watching this film is a must.

I actually enjoyed the movie overall. However, it wouldn't be easy to recommend. This movie is made for those with a knowledge of Japanese history (Basically, the Japanese population who are forced to study it when they are in school). A newbie will not be able to understand the story, nor the stakes of this battle. I have watched numerous dramas about this era. I have also read about many of the lords involved in that decisive battle, so I managed to follow the story without too much trouble.

There are several things to appreciate in this movie. For starters, the acting of key figures in the movie were well cast and superbly performed. Okada Junichi continues to impress with his acting skills. This movie is a testament to how far he's come. I also could not have imagined a better actor to be cast as Tokugawa Ieyasu than Yakusho Koji. He managed to portray the many sides of Japan's third unifier despite the overall biased take of the events in this movie.

What I found interesting is the portrayal of "Ninja-wars" that happened alongside the story. Information was definitely key to winning the war. Therefore their portrayal brought clarity to how it happened.

The action here is portrayed realistically and beautifully. Nothing too gory, but bloody enough to understand the horror of it.

Yet, there were many issues in this movie that prevented me from giving it a better score. Narration is a big one. Narration is often done in Taiga dramas. However, in this movie, it is indistinguishable from the conversations done between characters. Another huge issue is the choppy editing throughout the whole movie. I know there is a huge amount of information to be portrayed, but I wish they had given more time to smoothen the scene-to-scene.

Another mini-complaint is putting the character Hatsume at the forefront of the movie when it is an imaginary character, who doesn't have any true effect on the story. I also find it weird that princess chacha/Yodo-done wasn't given much of a role in this movie when historically, she plays an important part in the events preceding the battle. The movie mentions the connection between Mitsunari and Yodo-dono, yet neither explored nor even portrayed.

Overall, I still enjoyed that movie despite its flaws. I recommend this movie solely if you have at least a working knowledge of the Sengoku era of Japanese history.

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Well, this is such a disappointment! The movie looks like a "big budget" production, but I don't think non-Japanese could easily appreciate considering this is not a "festival" kind of movie and Sekigahara Battle itself is already hard to comprehend with involvement of many warlords throughout Japan.

Firstly, the dialogs are damn fast. The characters talk like there's no tomorrow, one line after another. To make it worst, those lines contain important facts to the story flow.

I don't know about native English speaker, but my brain had to work double throughout the movie. First to understand the English subtitle, second to recall the facts of this largest battle in Japan (that I learned elsewhere) because the movie failed to explain it well enough with a lot of "scenes skipping" one after another. The narration could be done much better, otherwise it's indistinguishable from the actors lines.

Secondly, the interpretation of Ishida Mitsunari's action was not that logical. It feels like the character had already read history book in certain part. For example, he can predict what's going to happen with Kobayakawa but still giving him such a big role in the battle.

The movie was also trying to portray the other side of Mitsunari with his concern towards Princess Koma and after that her attendant (Arimura's character), but it feels more like a sugar coating than an interpretation.

Lastly, while Ishida Mitsunari is the main hero here and the movie feels like trying to give justice to him, it's damn strange not to include his family (wife and children) but more focusing on Arimura's character as love interest. Other than that, Lady Yodo (Chacha) also has no dialogs in this.

Overall, this unintentionally feels like a wannabe film despite the good acting and nicely done cinematography. The inclusion of "Er Hu" solo section in the orchestra used for background music is also questionable! (lol before watching I saw someone commented on the other "streaming site" questioning why use Chinese music for Japanese movie, so when I heard the Er Hu part I was like ROFL)

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