Popular reviews

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  Review by Sin ✊🏿 ★★★★ 41

  “There is no justice in this world. Not all who wear the name of villain are evil men. Not all who are respected as noble men are worthy of the name.”

  Serpent is a fascinating silent era tale that follows the exploits of an honorable samurai (Heisaburo Kuritomi) who falls into disrepute and inadvertently becomes an "accidental" villain. It doesn't take long to perceive two unassailable truths about our disgraced hero:

  1️⃣ Kuritomi has disgustingly rotten luck! This man's luck goes from bad to worse, to worser, to worstest. 😮‍💨

  2️⃣ Kuritomi possesses a criminal lack of self-awareness. Because he lacks the maturity to reflect and do self-inventory on his shortcomings, self-accountability is non-existent. For him, nothing is ever his…

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  Review by Mario ❄️☃️🎄 ★★★★ 4

  Fuck the police and fuck classism and fuck Jirozo Akagi!

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  Review by Avirup ★★★½ 2

  76/100
  
  Never seen anyone with this much bad luck. My guy's life kept getting worse and worse but that's the price you pay for being a simp.

  This is genuinely a very well crafted film with some terrific compositions and superbly constructed action scenes, especially the final one was top class. The Benshi narration was really really nice. Overall a very good exploration of human suffering and strong critique of feudal Japanese society.

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  Review by Noah Cassidy ★★★

  If you don't tow the line, they crush you.

  A cross between if Charlie Brown or Arthur Fleck before he became The Joker were a samurai. Our poor protagonist from literally his first scene gets pushed around and berated for no reason, and with time, his heart corrupts to match a bitter and venomous world. I think this is without question the earliest work of samurai cinema I've seen, predating even The Jazz Singer, considered the first full feature film to use sound, in 1927. I would for sure love to see more silent samurai movies in the future, because even if I thought this was overall mostly just decent, it's fascinating to see here how Serpent feels both individualistic…

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  Review by Synt ★★★★½

  The Benshi accompaniment to this film can't be applauded enough, lending it a warm bed time story type vibe. The simple but effective story carries an easy to digest message that may seem juvenile - and maybe it is - but it's just so pleasantly done that I can't help but love it.

  Formally it's pretty impressive as well - nice use of minimal locations and sets, gives it this small time story feel as well, but it's not afraid to pull back a little on wider shots to use said minimal space as a means to still make our protagonist look all small and vulnerable.

  Shout outs to that editing towards the end as well. Just watch it really, it's not even that long.

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  Review by Stephen Gillespie ★★★

  Famous still for its climactic sword fight scene, and with good reason. Though there are notably outliers, silent cinema language is so often a succession of static camera placements. For most of the film, this echoes that expectation. But then with the large scale fight at the end, the camera goes wide and glides backward as our protagonist confronts a mob of assailants.

  It feels dynamic and never ending. A truly iconic war of one against many with moments of impactful choreography. Foes advance in unison, the lone defender’s sword flurries against the wall of aggressors. At one point we adopt a high angle shot from a rooftop, someone in the foreground starts throwing down roof tiles as weapons. The…

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  Review by Lencho of the Apes ★★★½ 3

  The most unreliable narrator this side of Al Roberts, this guy is never wrong because there were always extenuating circumstances and he was just unlucky and misunderstood, that's all. When the visible evidence points so unmistakably to his guilt that he can't deny what we're seeing, the whole terms of the discourse change and he starts talking about how Satan made him do all this shit.

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  Review by D Edward ★★★

  This was my first experience with benshi accompaniment, which is dramatic narration that goes along with the film. It worked well, but even if I had neither the narration or the subtitles, I think I still could follow the story of this samurai’s fall from grace relatively clearly. The major flaw in the narrative is that the film wants to sympathize with the “poor hero” when he’s his own worst enemy. He makes nearly every situation for himself worse, and always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Consequently, the film can be a little samey, but it’s also filled with plenty of sped-up action. I know older movies used to do that a lot, but…

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  Review by Tim Brayton ★★★½

  Impressively blurs the lines between samurai adventure and melodrama: it's a character study first and foremost, as we watch the tragic fall of a man who can't find his place in the world, but built into an episodic framework. It doesn't demonstrate any obvious concern with using its 73 minutes efficiently - there are a lot of moments that make basically the same point - but the miniature explosion of desperation at the end, beautifully carried off in the editing, is very much worth the wait.

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★½

  A pretty good disgraced samurai yarn with some great feel for physical action and a strong banshi performance.

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  Review by Joseph ★★★½

  First feature watched at UW Cinematheque; technical difficulties but shit rocked!

  “Cuck me once, shame on you. Cuck me twice, shame on me” would be the tagline for this picture if it was made today.

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  Review by Daniel Staebler ★★★½

  DVD. The downfall of an unlucky samurai. One of the gems of Japanese silent cinema. Recommended.