Gojoe

Gojoe, the latest film by the idiosyncratic director Ishii Sogo, links the dynamism of the action film with the magic world of the Japanese ‘Middle Ages’, and the aesthetics of the abstract film with the epic tradition of samurai films.The legend of Gojoe, which is very well known and extensive in Japan, is reminiscent in Ishii’s version of the adventurous magic of the Tolkien books. The story is set in 12th-century Japan, when the bloody battle between the Genji and the Heike clans disrupted the whole of society. The title refers to a bridge close to Kyoto, at that time the imperial capital. In the opening scene, we see how a knight of the Heike clan is beheaded by a demon. He is not the first and nor will he be the last. An old oracle predicts times of great unrest and battles between the forces of good and evil.The hero of the story is the former hoodlum Benkei (Ryu Daisuke), who has exchanged a violence existence for the devote life of a Buddhist monk. He shows the White Monk the signs that suddenly appear on his chest: he thinks he has been chosen to fight against evil powers. When Benkei witnesses a large Heike army being defeated by three master swordfighters, the spiritual and physical confrontation between good and evil comes inevitably closer by.