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This is a Miyamoto story beginning in median res. We first witness Musashi as he's just been released from an 3-year imprisonment by a Buddhist monk. Having skipped the man's backstory, we're instead introduced to him by a reiteration of his tribulations and aspirations. Musashi possesses an zealous desire to be unmatched with the sword, be just as unrivaled in virtue, and is forced to deny himself the love of a infatuated woman who chases after him so that he can solely give himself to the warrior's path.

After that, Musashi is off to the Ichijoji Temple and the duels begin!

This is one neatly directed movie. You can just tell that the director -- Daisuke Itô -- got his start in the silent days of cinema. He brings an expressive visual orientation to the filmmaking that heightens the material. This is especially forthcoming in the numerous duel scenes, where Itô's visual imagination and camera trickery compensates for the lacking choreography and creates some rousing confrontations.

This is at heart a thematically-focused movie. It centers around Musashi's quest to be a master fencer, and what it truly means to have mastered the sword, questions of virtue and self-mastery promulgating the film. Itô makes this compelling enough, but when the films diverts itself to other matters like Musashi's unfulfilled love or the young pupil that travels alongside him the film, as is usual for this genre, feels a lot more stale and unengaging. People not familiar with the Miyamoto tale though may feel blindsighted by the way we're just thrusted into the narrative as well as the lack of a proper resolution to his quest at the end.

Chiezô Kataoka plays the hero's role. He made innumerable films like these in his years. I always found him passable yet fading in comparison to other actors who armed themselves with the Samuraij's blade.

Overall, this is definitely a good and classical chambara flick, with Itô's visual direction giving it a leg-up. I give it a strong 6/10.

Eastern Europe became quite the spawning-ground for American B-films following the fall of the Soviet Union. Plenty of directors flew over there to shoot their pictures on the cheap, taking advantage of the local talent and scenery. Ariana's Quest is a prime example in this tradition. It's sort of a star-vehicle for Rena Mero (wrestling under the name Sable in the WWE), an attempt to convert her wrestling-fame into video-fame. Sadly, the end product leaves a lot to be desires in terms of quality and entertainment.

The titular Ariana (Rena Maro) is a princess of the mold that prefers swords and fencing over balls and courtship. Her father lies at his deathbed, and her lands at the brink of invasion. The cruel Warlord Xantos (Predrag Bjelac) covets both her charms and domains, and he is backed by his sorceress-sister Zuraya (Katerina Brozová), a villain even more evil-minded than he.

Ariana's Quest is plagued by many of the hallmarks of B-level pictures. The cinematography is shoddy, the acting less-than- stellar, the filmmaking odd, but to my thinking the films underlying flaw is mainly the tone they decided to set. The storytelling is very serious. It's a very straight-faced yarn. And the production is just not up-to-task to deliver on that sort of narrative. It is really jarring to see Sable (not the best thespian) talk with dead- tone seriousness about the slave-like responsibilities of being a princess. Or use the word "cold-steel" with a straight-face. Basically, it feels like one of those B-movies that would be really entertaining if someone like Cirio H. Santiago or Jim Wynorski had been sitting in the directors-chair, but Lloyd A. Simandl never nails the fun factor. The Czech locale does offer some relatively well-heeled costuming and locations (they appear to have shot in an actual castle of some sort), but the cinematography doesn't really take advantage of that.

Reportedly, Ariana's Quest was filmed as a pilot of an intended TV- series. That shows, in that the film doesn't really feature a proper ending. But there are several other odd filmmaking ticks that cannot be explained away by that fact. For example, Daniela Krhutova plays the assassin Tai Shan (whom alluringly enough is dressed head-to-toe in all-black leather armour), a relatively minor character. But when she dies, we're treated to this loving montage of her character, showing several pieces of footage of her that wasn't even in the film! It's truly bizarre!

I've probably sounded overly negative in this review. Fans of B- movies will probably find some enjoyment in a would-be epic like this one. There is just something inherently charming in productions like these that makes you want to watch them, despite their flaws. That said, I cannot give Ariana's Quest a higher score than 4/10

The movie begins with Dracula chasing a hefty, middle-aged man through his stronghold. They struggle, rather feebly I must admit, until the pursued man manages to pull down the drapes and expose the Vampire Lord to the sunlight outside, scorching him into nothing but fleshless bones in the process. After this confrontation we jump an unspecified number of years into the future, where the middle-aged man's (now widowed) wife is experiencing violent premonitions of Dracula at her deathbed. She's attended by her son and two daughters, to whom she impairs the dreadful knowledge that Dracula has risen from the grave - and implores the son to seek the Oak Crucifix, an holy item with the power to stop Dracula once and for all.

Said son, being the modern scientific type, disregards his mothers deathbed rambling about Vampires. But he still manages to find himself ending up in the Counts Mansion though, and has for some unfathomable reason brought his two sisters along with him, whom are exactly the kind of nubile, innocent-faced girls that Dracula likes to sink his fangs into.

I referred to the beloved Count as Dracula, but amusingly enough, the movie averts this well-known name and instead calls him Draculstein! Said vampire also lives in a mansion (despite the establishing footage clearly showing a castle). His presence is rather flaccid, I must say, and the movie never manages to turn the bloodsucking villain into a stirring foe to be combated.

Tonally this movie feels like its positioned in the growing-pain stages of the old and the new. Atmospherically the film very much is reminiscent of those old Universal horror movie, it's black-and- white, there's plenty of fog to go around, Gothic stylings with a general lack of music, as well as an overall subdued and restrained approach towards it all. But there is also a smidge of the more explicit material that Hammer Horror brought to the industry, such as the Counts predatory attitude towards women and a ghastly scene where Igor inserts some sort of sword-cane into a woman's heart.

The movie has it's low-budget charm, to be sure. It's an old-school Vampire feature from a time when the standards where changing. The atmosphere and stylings that means so much to the enjoyment of films like these are competently handled but not much else can be said about it. It's okay, fairly engaging if you are fascinated by this kind of stuff, but all-in-all it's an uninspired production with the characteristic shoddiness and limp storytelling that proliferates among B-films in this genre. I give it a weak 5.

5/10