When The Last Sword Is Drawn review

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Humble footsoldier Kanichiro Yoshimura (Kîchi Nakai) wields the most lethal blade in the Shinsengumi, a band of Samurai whose loyalties are torn during a civil conflict in 19th-century Japan. He's also a "moneygrubber", renowned for accepting lowly tasks and hoarding the lucre. Hardly behaviour becoming of a Samurai, then, and fellow swordsman Hajime Saito (Koichi Sato) regards him as a pathetic specimen...

Unfolding in lengthy flashbacks and paced like a funeral procession, Yojiro Takita's handsome-looking but dull epic numbs both arse and mind. At its heart flutters a subversive story about a Samurai who puts family over honour, while the tradition-versus-modernisation Meiji-era backdrop is The Last Samurai revisited. Odd bursts of action and emotion flare through the torpor, but it's hard to be forgiving of a film with more endings than The Return Of The King.

The Total Film team are made up of the finest minds in all of film journalism. They are: Editor Jane Crowther, Deputy Editor Matt Maytum, Reviews Ed Matthew Leyland, News Editor Jordan Farley, and Online Editor Emily Murray. Expect exclusive news, reviews, features, and more from the team behind the smarter movie magazine. 

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