The Legend & Butterfly

Although I've seen various actors portray Oda Nobunaga before, this is the first film where they've depicted Nohime as even more formidable than Nobunaga himself. Especially in their brief close combat scenes, shortly after getting married, Nohime confronts Nobunaga with a sword, and later, even in their prosperity, she powerfully reminds him of his misguided path. Aya Ueto's portrayal exudes unwavering strength, while Takuya Kimura's character evolves from hesitation to determined success and ultimately to a supremely confident ruler. Their expressions are truly on point. Although the story revisits familiar themes, the dialogue design leading up to the Battle of Okehazama really emphasizes the advantages of the enemy, making us ponder where we should apply our strengths now.

Super interesting movie rooted in history.

Kimura Takuya plays Nobunaga beautifully starting from a scrappy teenager to the Demon Lord that he is famous for. Ayase Haruka also plays a strong woman who contrasts with Nobunaga. A huge portion of the movie is character development of Nobunaga and Nohime and you can see how their personalities change over time as they're influenced by their situation. Throughout the movie, you also see recaps of major historical events that Nobunaga went through in his conquest to unify Japan.

I love how the movie labels each historical event so that you can read along Wikipedia as you watch the movie, if learning history is your jam.

Historically this is probably not possible. An enduring love between Oda Nobunaga and Nohime. The costumes are 10/10. OST is 9/10. The prancing and laughing westerners could be eliminated they look stupid.

But Takuya Kimura's acting of multidimensional Nobunaga is praise worthy. His chemistry with Haruka Ayase is bittersweet. The scene when Nobunaga has to bite on his dagger scabbard to hold his tears when seeing Nohime leave tugged on my heart strings. This is an excellent movie. I just wished there would be more emotional depth between those two since they have so much chemistry.

Akechi Mitsuhide is well played. I am surprised at how young the actor was. Overall this is a movie I would recommend to people who enjoy Sengoku era inspired movies.

21st century has infiltrated the Japanese movie makers. This show focuses on the relationship between the Husband and Wife. And not surprising the Wife is a 21st century western wife with a sharp tongue and attitude, dressed in period costume. The Husband, you guessed it, is a fool and she saves him from death, which now days is credential for any "Independent woman" in a movie, forgetting that this is supposed to be 1500th. So no historical authenticity here, another show to distort history. There are plenty of better movies on this era and plot. Not worth watching.

The characters of two dimensional and the plot is fictional and not based on historical records. Do not recommend it.

The life, death and many events around the life of warlord Oda Nobunaga have been the source and inspiration of many movies. In The Legend and Butterfly, we get to see an heavily fictionnalized version of Oda defining years through a different lens, his relationship with Kicho/Nohime, his legal wife, of which not that much is known historically. This allows for a lot of flitting through actual events peperred with a mature love story (which is more of a "relation" between two very different characters than some sort of romance novel), fortunately not shaved down the throat of the audience.

Kimura Takuya professionaly portrays an Oda slowly but surely drifting from a countryside minor warlord to a ruthless borderline cruel master of the country, while Haruka Ayase has a very solid presence on screen as Kicho. A minor grip, the story spans over three decades but the main characters don't seem to age more than three minutes (whereas second roles do seem age a bit... go figure....). Also, there is -a lot- of Nanban (foreign at the time) music instruments being played at various time in the movie, to a point this becomes distracting.

Even if if perfectly works with only a little histoy knowledge, the movie may be appreciated more if one has a basic knowlegde of the events at the time, from the Okehazama battle to the burning of Enryaku temple. Nothing that a quick read from wikipedia can not solve.

Obviously a lot of money has gone into this , from the reconstitution of Azuchi castle to Portuguese ships, the gorgeous settings, etc. It shows, but there arent't many battles on screen so viewers should not expect an action movie.

Overall a surprisingly good flick.