In part one of the Heaven and Earth review we talked about how equally matched these 2 warlords were. Now we are going to look at what is probably a pretty authentic recreation of the battle formations used during that period of Japanese history.
Kenshin’s “Winding Wheel” vs. Shingen’s “Crane.”
We briefly discuss to the “Winding Wheel” employed by Kenshin and Singen’s “Crane” technique. According to Japanese historian Stephen Turnbull the “Kuruma gakari” (wheel) this formation, drawn like a spiral, envisages successive units of an army being brought against the enemy ‘as the wheel winds on’. It is famously described in the Koyo Gunkan as being the formation adopted by Uesugi Kenshin for his dawn attack against Takeda Shingen at the fourth battle of Kawanakajima in 1561. It is essentially an idealized representation of a tactical move that replaces tired units by fresh ones without breaking the momentum.
Singen’s The Woodpecker pecks at the tree, and the vibrations scare the insect out so he can eat it. Kansuke (a Singen General) suggested sending a garrison up the mountain by a round-about route late at night to “peck” at the Kenshin’s troops in the early hours, flushing them down to the plain below where the bulk of the Takeda forces would be waiting!
The plan was approved, and troops went up the mountain, however when they arrived, the Uesugi, whether through having guessed the maneuvers or from having been tipped off by spies, had moved down the opposite side of the mountain in the darkness, and positioned themselves on the plain where the Takeda would not be expecting them for a another few hours. This did not help Takeda’s cause at all.
Kenshin’s tactics for so effective that they broke through Singen’s lines and were able to personally attack the Takeda himself who received some cuts until some of his bodyguards were able to come to his aid and help fight of Kenshin himself as well as other in cadre.
The battle was costly for both sides. a costly battle for both sides. Kenshin had lost 72 percent, or roughly 12,960 men, while Shingen, although taking 3,117 enemy heads as trophies, had lost 62 percent, or 12,400 men. In one of the largest battles ever fought in Japanese history, the “Crane’s Wing” formation, when executed by well-disciplined troops, could only temporarily stop that of the “winding wheel.”
Once again, these two rivals managed to fight to a stalemate—nothing ever being settled between the two they even died within months of each other.
Hello JPFmovies fans and welcome to another review of something a little different. The JPFmovies staff remembers watching Tom Cruise and Michael Caine in the 1988 film Cocktail and wondering just how low Michael Caine could go after his stellar performance in Blame it on Rio (1984) and rolling our eyes at the thin plot, predictable ending and an overall shitty film—but of course earned a ton of money. After that fiasco, members of the JPFmovies staff were certain that we had seen the last of media glorifying bartenders who, according to Michael Caine were “the aristocrats of the working class.” However, in our relentless efforts to review the good, the bad and the ugly the JPFmovies staff was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon Bartender (2011) a Japanese mini-series based on a manga of the same name.
Ryu Sasakura (Masaki Aiba) is a bar tending prodigy who won a European cocktail contest. He got into an argument with his instructor and was fired. In a state of dejection he came back to his native country of Japan. He finds work again in Tokyo and also meets Miwa Kurushima. Meanwhike, Ryu Sasakura is able to listen to his customer’s problems and help alleviate their worries with his special cocktail mixes including work and love and family troubles, one drink at a time. Our bar tending prodigy even takes on a disciple and enters him into a contest—only to have his lose magnificently!
Why is the Japanese series tolerable? Because it does not portray the bartender as some flamboyant circus performer out to land a babe, some cash or another material recompense but a person who takes his craft seriously and listens to his patrons without judgment while providing honest, simple advice. He even goes so far as to track the water used in a customer’s hometown to make the drink authentic. What more could you want in a bartender? No Ryu was not flinging glasses three feet in the air while dancing to some 80’s rock, he made his drinks with precision, attention to detail and an eye to match the booze with its drinker. A consummate professional. This is not a heavy and gritty film that makes you sweat, but a nice lite series that provides a decent respite from the world today, much like going to your favorite watering hole. Take a few hours and watch it, you will be glad you did.
Payback is a 1999 American neo-noir crime film written and directed by Brian Helgeland in his directorial debut, and stars Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry, Maria Bello, and David Paymer. But in 2006, Helgeland released his director’s cut that hardly resembles the 1999 theatrical version. The “original” Payback starts off with Mel Gibson (Porter—we don’t know if it is his first or last name) narrating his current predicament; that is, being operated on by some back alley surgeon who takes two bullets out of his back and uses a bottle of booze to sterilize the wound. Porter’s narration begins to tell a story of crime and betrayal showing that there is truly no honor among thieves.
Porter and another criminal named Val Resnik hit a Triad gang for $140,000.00. They made a clean get away and while they were dividing up the money, Porter’s wife shoots him in the back allowing Resnik to take the entire heist so he can buy his way back into an all-powerful organized crime outfit—for some unknown reason Resnick owed this group $130,000.00 and once paid he was allowed back in. While Porter is writhing in agony after his wife shot him, Resnick walks up to him and produces a picture of Porter with another woman which was enough to convince his wife to betray and try to kill him. Both Resnik and the wife leave him for dead.
Somehow Porter makes it to the back-alley surgeon and spends 5 months recovering from his wounds. When he is able Porter sets out to collect his ½ of the heist that was originally agreed upon by the partners in crime. The rest of the film is Porter tracking down Resnik, dealing with corrupt cops and a well-organized criminal enterprise in order to get his $70,000.00. Porter is very clever and outwits anyone that stands in his way. Including putting away two very corrupt cops, killing numerous foot soldiers of the “outfit” as well as the enterprises’ underboss and of course Resnick. Naturally after some grueling fighting and torture Porter recovers his money and gets away with Rosie, a hooker he used to drive for and who helped him in his quest for the cash.
The 1999 theatrical version did well at the box office and world wide grossed approximately $160,000,000.00. Helgeland went on to make a name for himself, writing and directing such films as LA Confidential, Man on Fire and Robin Hood. His one big mistake is a film previously reviewed by the JPFmovies staff The Postman—winner of a Golden Raspberry award because it just sucked.
Then in 2006, Helgeland releases Payback Straight Up The Directors Cut. The new release is materially different than the theatrical version and in the eyes of the JPFmovies staff much better. The Directors Cut is much darker involving an unappealing hero, little humor, some graphic scenes including one where he beats the shit out of his wife and no neat, happy ending but instead a dead dog (named Porter). It is a totally different film, gritty edgy and no one in the story is a “good guy.” But when you think about it, Helgeland was right from an economic point of view to release the 1999 version to the public. The theatrical version is funnier, easier accessible and more spectacular most of the shots show Porter with a light facial expression, almost smirking, and of course the dog survives. Unfortunately, much more appealing to a wider audience which translated into $160,000,000.00.
The Director’s Cut is a much better film, but for narrower, hardcore audience and would not have made nearly as much money. Payback is yet another example of how Hollywood has turned the art of film into nothing more than dollars and cents. JPFmovies recommends that you watch both versions of the film if for no other reason than to see just how powerful editing can be.
The creation of Netflix, probably the greatest innovation for movie and T.V. fans since the introduction of HBO and similar channels, has given people like us at JPFmovies the ability to “binge” watch movies/T.V. series. Well, we went on an Enterprise “binge” in “the blind” so to speak—not having followed any of the trials, tribulations and fan/producer politics. If you look through our reviews over the years you will find very few T.V. series, much less American produced television. In other words, we were not influenced by all the political machinations surrounding the three previous Star Trek series beginning in the 1980s and running though the late 1990s or by the opinions of their fans and producers. So when we went on our Enterprise “binge” it was really with a fresh eye. And you know what? We thought it was a decent show (except for the theme song).
That said, when we searched the Internet for information about Enterprise, almost all the content we saw was invariably negative. Enterprise was blamed for the end of the Star Trek franchise that had been running since the 1980s. Fans blamed the show’s lack of continuity and rather thin plot while producers Berman and Braga argued it was some sort of “franchise fatigue”—a position we here at JPFmovies find self-serving, trying to avoid taking responsibility for the show’s short run.
So when we watched the show with a fresh eye, JPFmovies thought the show didn’t deserve all the criticism it received and should have been given some more seasons to let the show get some more traction. Those of us at JPFmovies thought that T’Pol (the ever present Vulcan) was an interesting change of pace from the traditional steely-eyed monotoned alien who spouted nothing but “logic.” As a Vulcan, she walked the line between Vulcans repressing their emotions and having them. Frankly I didn’t mind seeing some emotions underneath the typical Vulcan surface. We also read a lot of complaints that the actress playing T’Pol could not act and was there only for her eye candy appeal. To deny she was eye candy would be foolish, but she also did a good job playing a full time female Vulcan. In fact, a JPFmovie consultant found an interview with her where she herself said that you need more than eye candy to make a Trek series—you also needed decent stories. So she was aware of the limits that she could provide as a model.
We also found Enterprise a nice change of pace in that the Capitan was not an all knowing, never making any mistakes character, i.e. larger than life. Scott Bakula, as Capitan Archer, screws up all the time—as he should, because Enterprise was humanity’s first venture into space beyond our system. Picard, Sisko, and Janeway always made the right calls—never faltering. Archer was constantly screwing up, as the Vulcan delegation on earth was quick to point out. A human out there in space interacting with aliens (hostile or not) is going to make mistakes—and lots of them. There was also the ship’s doctor, Phlox, an alien who proved quite interesting—a “Denoublan” who used odd creatures in the course of his medical treatments and had three wives who each had three husbands. He was always a great one to watch. Then too, Jeffrey Combs, who played many roles on DS9, was great as Commander Shram—the head of an alien race called the Andorians.
To keep this review at a readable length, the last thing we will comment on was Enterprise itself. The ship, unlike Voyager, TNG’s Enterprise, and DS9’s invulnerable space-station, was fragile—prone to damage and breaking. The ship never had shields or phasors (until several episodes in). Much more often than not, Enterprise was no match for many of the alien ships that it encountered. Again, something that one should expect when humans first begin to explore space outside of our solar system.
We read an article on Syfy’s site which also brought up some good points as to why Enterprise didn’t go the distance: The Internet! TNG, DS9 and Voyager were essentially all pre-Internet boom shows, while Enterprise was subject to hypercritical analysis, which was like a cloud of noise that had a profound impact on the ability of others to just enjoy Enterprise, and also created the perception that the show was more reviled than it actually was. Another interesting fact we didn’t know about Enterprise that sprang from the Internet was that it was unsurprisingly, one of the most pirated shows from 2001–2005 on sites like the Pirate Bay—so many viewers would not be reflected in the ratings. Two ideas that JPFmovies put some serious stock in.
Despite all the “bad press” Enterprise was subjected to, it seems that the show is having a renaissance, many people are going to back to watch the show streaming on such outlets as Netflix, and the “bad press” is starting to be replaced with more positive posts—a long overdue interpretation of the series.
What makes this the one of the worst MST3k movies is the random narration of disjointed events ranging from flags on the moon to a women’s purse. There was no connection between any of the scenes. The characters were thin as they had neither acted or a story and hardly any dialogue—it was all narration and grunts.
Half of the movie was spent watching cars drive on dusty roads in the desert this even went so far as to have a long flying scene with some idiot shooting out the window at an innocent man. Then he jumped out of the plane to hunt him down and finish the job.
The director of The Beast of Yucca Flats also created Red Zone Cuba an equally bad movie which will be reviewed soon.
The MS3k crew as usual made the movie bearable. Crow T. Robot was funny as he pestered Mike Nelson (a Wisconsin Native) about lunch time continually asking him if it was 11:30.
SJ’s advice is simple: DON’T WATCH THIS MOVIE WITHOUT THE MST3K PEOPLE TO MAKE IT TOLERABLE. BE WARNED!
J.P.'s I'm Outta Here Movie Thoughts 
Ok JPFmovie fans here is Part 2 of Heaven and Earth (1990).
In part one of the Heaven and Earth review we talked about how equally matched these 2 warlords were. Now we are going to look at what is probably a pretty authentic recreation of the battle formations used during that period of Japanese history.
Kenshin’s “Winding Wheel” vs. Shingen’s “Crane.”
We briefly discuss to the “Winding Wheel” employed by Kenshin and Singen’s “Crane” technique. According to Japanese historian Stephen Turnbull the “Kuruma gakari” (wheel) this formation, drawn like a spiral, envisages successive units of an army being brought against the enemy ‘as the wheel winds on’. It is famously described in the Koyo Gunkan as being the formation adopted by Uesugi Kenshin for his dawn attack against Takeda Shingen at the fourth battle of Kawanakajima in 1561. It is essentially an idealized representation of a tactical move that replaces tired units by fresh ones without breaking the momentum.
Singen’s The Woodpecker pecks at the tree, and the vibrations scare the insect out so he can eat it. Kansuke (a Singen General) suggested sending a garrison up the mountain by a round-about route late at night to “peck” at the Kenshin’s troops in the early hours, flushing them down to the plain below where the bulk of the Takeda forces would be waiting!
The plan was approved, and troops went up the mountain, however when they arrived, the Uesugi, whether through having guessed the maneuvers or from having been tipped off by spies, had moved down the opposite side of the mountain in the darkness, and positioned themselves on the plain where the Takeda would not be expecting them for a another few hours. This did not help Takeda’s cause at all.
Kenshin’s tactics for so effective that they broke through Singen’s lines and were able to personally attack the Takeda himself who received some cuts until some of his bodyguards were able to come to his aid and help fight of Kenshin himself as well as other in cadre.
The battle was costly for both sides. a costly battle for both sides. Kenshin had lost 72 percent, or roughly 12,960 men, while Shingen, although taking 3,117 enemy heads as trophies, had lost 62 percent, or 12,400 men. In one of the largest battles ever fought in Japanese history, the “Crane’s Wing” formation, when executed by well-disciplined troops, could only temporarily stop that of the “winding wheel.”
Once again, these two rivals managed to fight to a stalemate—nothing ever being settled between the two they even died within months of each other.
The JPFmovie staff all recommend this film.
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Posted by JPFmovies on June 9, 2019 in Movie Reviews
Tags: 1990 film, action, commentary, comments, film, history, Japanese film, Kenshin, military, Movie, movies, reviews, rival warlord, samurai, security, stalemate, Takeda Singen, War, warring states