Confusing and half-hearted storyline about a samurai's revenge against the clan that betrayed him. Or something like that. It's unoriginal, uninspiring, with mediocre direction, acting, and plot throughout. Definitely not one of Gosha's better movies, which is too bad, as he's really put out some good ones when working with the right team.

Nakadai Tatsuya is fun to watch as always, but he's not on screen long enough to carry your interest with this one.

Avoid unless you're a big fan of either Nakadai the actor or Gosha the director (and I'm a big fan of both!)

How can you go wrong with a violent, sleazy, unapologetically dramatic and surprisingly beautiful Japanese action movie called Bandits vs Samurai Squadron?

Well, you can make it an extravagant 163 minutes long I guess, ensuring that it certainly overstays its welcome and meanders a bit in places, and is far from a "great" movie overall.

But despite the length, it's actually narratively a little tighter than some of Gosha's more all over the place films, and the action sequences are satisfying and very over the top in the bloodshed they contain.

Another minor complain would be that it did t contain quite as much Tatsuya Nakadai as I was hoping for, given he does have top billing here and this turns out to be more of an ensemble piece, but the screen time he does have is great, and very few people have ever been able to pull of samurai action scenes as well as him.

This is a whole different movie if you understand the emotional intent and the intenseness of a revenge planned over ten years in advance. What was a band of bandits has become a clan. It is about two brothers whose father was killed for embezzlement AND his family ordered to be executed. The band/clan of thieves comes together for one last attempt to revenge their family against the Samurai with the older wanting revenge against the leader of the "Bureau" of Samurai who enforce laws. The younger one is intent on relieving the Samurai of their treasures as a last single act which will fund the retirement of the clan of thieves. There is more to this than clash of swords and the flashes of nudity in the plot.