In America there must be thousands of Westerns filling up the shelves of many movie studios. The same is true of samurai movies in Japan. It's just a little piece of each culture. Not that it is the same story every time, but people watch them and feel safe to know what is going to happen (a bad guy is going to mess stuff up, there's going to be some good fights, and the good guy is going to win in the end).
I saw Samurai Fiction after watching a great deal of 'typical' Japanese samurai movies (most haven't even been released in the US) and felt that the music the (with the 'western style' instruments) was a fresh addition to a long line of movies caught up in the tradition of making samurai movies 'the way one's supposed to.' The director (a former director of MTV videos for Japanese bands) also uses younger actors and rock musicians in leading roles in an attempt to appeal to the younger generations of Japan whose tastes are quickly drifting away from the older samurai generation's.
All in all, Samurai Fiction is a fun movie that is easy to watch for those of us that would like a breath of fresh air from the samurai movie scene.
I saw Samurai Fiction after watching a great deal of 'typical' Japanese samurai movies (most haven't even been released in the US) and felt that the music the (with the 'western style' instruments) was a fresh addition to a long line of movies caught up in the tradition of making samurai movies 'the way one's supposed to.' The director (a former director of MTV videos for Japanese bands) also uses younger actors and rock musicians in leading roles in an attempt to appeal to the younger generations of Japan whose tastes are quickly drifting away from the older samurai generation's.
All in all, Samurai Fiction is a fun movie that is easy to watch for those of us that would like a breath of fresh air from the samurai movie scene.