“A magnificent film! Takuya Kimura shows us that he has more to deliver outside of being a music artist and television drama actor with a stunning performance. While director Yoji Yamada concludes his samurai trilogy with another magnificent film. ‘Love and Honor’ is highly recommended!”
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TITLE: Love and Honor (Bushi no Ichibun)
DURATION: 125 minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Japanese 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound, English Stereo, 16:9, English subtitles
RATED: PG-13
COMPANY: FUNimation Entertainment
RELEASE DATE: November 11, 2008
Directed by Yoji Yamada
Based on a novel by Shuhei Fujisawa
Writen by Yoji Yamada, Emiko Hiramatsu, Ichiro Yamamoto
Executive Produced by Junichi Sakamoto
Produced by Hiroshi Fukazawa and Ichiro Yamamoto
Music by Isao Tomita
Art Direction by Naomi Koike
Conductor: Isao Tomita
Starring:
Takuya Kimura as Shinnojo Mimura
Rei Dan as Kayo Mimura
Mitsugoro Bando as Toya Shimada
Takashi Sasano as Tokuhei
Kaori Momoi as Ine Hatano
Nenji Kobayashi as Sakunosuke Higuchi
Ken Ogata as Shinnojo’s fencing instructor
Toshiki Ayata as Kajuro Takigawa
Nobuto Okamoto as Togo Hatano
An award winning masterpiece of sacrifice and devotion, Love and Honor weaves a timeless tale set in the waning days of feudal Japan. Directed by Academy Award nominee Yoji Yamada (The Twilight Samurai) and starring Takuya Kimura (2046), Love and Honor depicts the emotional intensity of an age when respect was more valuable than riches and love cut more truly than any sword.
Shinnojo Mimura is a samurai sharing a hand-to-mouth existence with his beautiful wife, Kayo. Frustrated by his lowly status within the castle ranks, Shinnojo dreams of better days instructing children in the way of the sword. But destiny, it would seem, has other plans… a freak accident takes the warrior’s sight, leaving Shinnojo cursed. Losing his status and pride, his hopes and dreams, and even himself to this life of eternal darkness, only one path lies open for Shinnojo. That of the true and noble samurai.
Love and Honor – Tale of the fallen samurai.
Acclaimed director Yoji Yamada, well-known in Japan for his films based on the fishing manga “Tsuribaka Nisshi” (aka “Free and Easy) went into a direction of creating a film trilogy based on samurai.  Both films such as 2002’s “Tasogare Seibei (The Twilight Samurai) and 2004’s “Kakushi Ken Oni no Tsume” (aka The Hidden Blade) were critically acclaimed and were award winning films. But his final in the trilogy would be the 2006 film “Bushi no Ichibun” (Love and Honor) starring SMAP vocalist Takuya Kimura.
Takuya Kimura is one of Japan’s popular and trendy stars known for his dramas such as “Long Vacation”, “Love Revolution”, “GIFT”, “Hero” and many other television dramas that have achieved enormous ratings in Japan. But one area that Kimura at the time had not conquered was the big screen. Having appeared in Wong Kar-Wai’s “2046” in 2004, it was not until “Bushi no Ichibun” that would give the actor fame for his award-winning performance for his role as the character of Shinnojo Mimura. But also gain a lot of press when the actor declined his 2007 nomination for the Japanese Academy Awards because he felt that he didn’t deserve to be in the same category with the other, more distinguished actors that were nominated.
Needless to say, “Bushi no Ichibun” (Love and Honor) was nominated for 13 Japanese Academy Awards and won three for “Best Cinematography”, “Best Lighting” and “Best Supporting Actor” and Takuya Kimura was now seen more than just a commercial actor and would go on to receive critical success with another film the following year with “Hero”. As for Yoji Yamada, he has went on to do more adaptations with his “Tsuribaka Nisshi” films and also create another award winning film in 2008 titled “Kabe”.
The film stars Takuya Kimura as Shinnojo Mimura. He has a good life, living in a home with his loving wife Kayo (Rei Dan) and his servant Tokuhei (Takashi Sasano) but he is growing tired of his job as a samurai with a job being a food taster for his Lord. During those times, samurai’s served as food tasters because of enemy infiltration trying to assassinate a clan’s lord via poison through the food. Samurai’s taste the food and if they suffer no illness, the food is then given to the Lord of their clan.
But Shinnojo is growing tired and wants to quit it all by starting up his own dojo and teaching children how to fight with this sword. His wife is supportive of his decision and looks forward for him to train the children at their home.
But during a usual day of food tasting, Shinnojo suffers from food poisoning from a fish that is not supposed to be served on a certain type of dish and can create a toxin that can kill a person. The good news is that Shinnojo manages to survive, the bad news is that the effects of the poisoning has left him blind.
With Shinnojo unable to perform his duties as a samurai, the family now goes through a crisis of who will be the financial provider and Shinnojo now feeling worthless because not only will he lose his his samurai status, he loses his pride. And thus, he is left with darkness and contemplating suicide. Despite what has gone wrong, his wife Kayo loves him unconditionally no matter what. She will do anything for her husband.
With family trying to help Kayo with choices of how she can help take care of herself and her husband, a higher-ranked samurai named Toya Shimada who has been smitten with Kayo when she was single, has offered to help her…but for a price. She give up her body to him and he will try to get people to support her family in continuing his samurai stipend.
When Shinnojo finds out that his Lord has agreed to continue his stipend, rumors start to circulate about his wife being with another man. Shinnojo wonders at what price his wife may have had to pay in order to get his stipend and thus it sets him off into a dangerous path that may lead him to losing everything that is precious to him including his own life.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
“Love and Honor” is presented in 16:9 widescreen. Picture quality especially the cinematography by Mutsuo Naganuma is absolutely beautiful. Although most of the film is shot at the home of Shinnojo Mimura, there are intricate details of how things were in feudal Japan. For example, using a pot with hot coal in order to iron clothes and also the costume design and set production looks absolutely fantastic.
Audio is presented in Japanese 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound and for the most part, the film is dialogue-based and front and center channel driven.  There are scenes during heavy rainfall that utilize the surround but for the most part, dialogue and the music are through the front and center channels. The DVD also includes an English dubbed track in stereo which is not my preference but I can understand those who don’t like reading subtitles, wanting to watch it with English dialogue.
As for subtitles, English subtitles are offered.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
There are no special features included on the DVD.
“Love and Honor” (Bushi no Ichibun) is an excellent film. The talent were well-cast, the storyline was fantastic, the production and costume design was well-done, personally this is a wonderful film that I wholeheartedly recommend.
Personally, it was great to see Takuya Kimura in such a serious role. As a fan of many of his Japanese dramas, you come to expect a lot of trendiness when it comes to his roles but like many Japanese viewers, who were skeptical if Kimura could transition into the big screen but most of all play a believable samurai, Takuya Kimura definitely delivered.
As for director Yoji Yamada, his films are expected to be successful. Even when I started watching his films beginning with “Tsuribaka nisshi 3” back in 1990, when it came to watching Japanese films, my Japanese friends would always recommend his films and would tell me he is like the Spielberg from Japan. Needless to say, the excitement that he has brought to his films, especially his samurai trilogy and how well-crafted they are shows how passionate and amazing the director truly is.
But as I explain to you of all the positives of “Love and Honor”, I do have one major negative and that is the lack of special features included on the DVD. No Japanese trailer, no featurette, nothing.  In Japan, there were probably five different releases for this film on DVD but special features ranged from backstage footage, a promotional video, sword battling featurette, interviews with the talent, footage from the 78 days of filming and more. So, it’s difficult to know that you enjoyed this film so much but there are no special features on the DVD.
“Love and Honor” is a fantastic film! If you enjoy films that are about feudal Japan or are a Yoji Yamada or KimuTaku fan, “Love and Honor” is definitely recommended!