Movies should, at all costs, avoid being boring and too long. Kojiro is both of those things, and not even a little Tatsuya Nakadai near the end can do much to save it. He's one of my favourite actors of all time, and he's not in this for the first 95% of the movie. I can't deny it was fun seeing him for one brief fight scene near the end, but it certainly wasn't worth sitting through the rest of the movie for what amounted to a cameo.
This is probably the least interesting old-school samurai movie I've ever watched. I'm usually forgiving of flaws in these kinds of movies and find something to enjoy, but this one was just too long and too dull for much enjoyment to be had. It scores some points for looking okay visually and technically containing some Tatsuya Nakadai, but other than that, it was quite bad.
