Golden Kamuy

The Golden Kamui manga should make for an amazing quasi-western. It's got the frontier setting, with war vets seeking their fortunes, native peoples in the mix and swords and guns determining survival and justice. In other words, it has everything a great western needs.

Unfortunately the great story is wasted by terrible direction and an average style. Instead of a cool, stylized western, we get a run-of-the-mill, fit-for-tv drama. This isn't surprising considering the directors less-than-impressive library (a bunch of high-low movies). What's worse, the costumes look like bad cosplay. And the actors look straight out of the make-up room, too clean and pretty for their situations. The final product looks and feels so corny. Where's the grit? Where's the style?

Oh well. I'm going to go rewatch the old Abashiri prison movies to get this bad taste out of my mouth.

From the actor's performance to the scenery to the outfits everything was so well considered taking into account the manga and the anime. I think a better job for an anime adaptation has not been made in such great detail. Being a big fan of the manga and anime, my hopes were low for the live action, but I was proved wrong and rightfully so. They also gave great detail to making the set exactly like the story, from the jail to Asirpa's house and so on. Not to mention they followed the story so well, not leaving anything out and putting in parts that even the anime didn't incorporate. The actor's interpretation was really good. Truly an amazing job I cannot wait for the second movie!

I watched the movie with prior knowledge of the story as I had once read the beginning of the original work. This film marks the first one I watched in a theater in 2024. I saw comments in some reviews mentioning that Anna Yamada, who portrayed Asiripa, seemed too mature. Although I can understand that perspective, I actually quite liked Yamada's portrayal of Asiripa; her performance was adorable. Hiroshi Tamaki's acting was also perfectly unsettling, in a good way. Overall, it was fantastic. I sincerely hope that more adaptations of manga originals can be meticulously and successfully brought to life in movies, just like this one.

You first have to understand that this is an adaptation of a manga that's easily long enough to make 3-5 movies and which already has an anime adaptation that no doubt influenced the movie. So, yes, it's a bit of a live-action cartoon. Also, it's Japanese so don't expect Hollywood-level special effects but, even still, they did a pretty good job with the bears, Retarr, etc.

Most of the casting is great, costumes are on point, scenery is excellent. The scenes inside Abashiri prison look like they were probably shot on-location. It's a museum now, you can go there next time you're in Hokkaido (pick up a few bottles of Abashiri Prison Stout from the gift shop and thank me later).

I was worried that they'd try to condense the whole long story down to fit into movie length which would really ruin it. I'm very glad to see they haven't done that which means they're hoping to film a series of these. Hopefully they will but, if not, there's still the excellent anime series.

I don't know why the rating is so low. This movie was absolutely lit.

The lead : Immortal Sugimoto is cool (the actor has done a marvelous job: solid acting) . There were funny moments too. Tbh this movie has potential to compete against high budget hollywood action movies.

The storyline is nicely executed, direction is great and soundtrack is good.

I loved the blue eyed girl, she was sweet and fought well ( great at archery).

Basically, there is a hidden treasure and the map is drawn on bodies of convicts who escaped. Everyone wants to get the gold.

There are emotional scenes too, making the whole movie a wholesome experience. I would love to watch the 2nd part in cinemas ( it would be epic)