Bloody Spear At Mount Fuji 1955 Original story by Kintaro Inoue, screenplay by Shintarō Mimura, Fuji Yahiro and Toshio Tamikado, directed by Tomu Uchida. A Japanese period drama. We watched the Arrow Blu-ray from 2018.
A group of people on the road to Edo interact with each other. There's Samurai Sakawa Kojūrō and his two servants Genta and Genpachi, a traveling musician and her daughter, a man selling his daughter Otane into prostitution, a policeman, a thief, a pilgrim, a young kid called Jirō and a man called Tōzaburō.
They often stay at the same inns. The Samurai is a bad drinker and he eventually has a run in with a group of drunk samurai scum that doesn't end well for him. Jirō learns the heard way it's not much of a life to be a spear carrier. Otane is saved from a life of prostitution and goes home with her father. She's saved by Tōzaburō who's daughter had died while being a prostitute. The musician and her daughter manage to make the trip mostly unscathed.
It's a pokey paced drama that reminds me what a shitty place it was to live in the days before the Meiji Restoration of 1868. It's not much better after either. It's mostly chatter and sitting about, there's hardly any action until the third act. The characters are mostly interesting but they don't do a whole lot. I enjoyed the movie but doubt I'll get around to it again too soon. Still, it was worth a gander.
Despicable Me 4 2024 Written by Mike White and Ken Daurio, directed by Chris Renaud.
A supervillain called Maxime escapes prison, his goal is to kill Gru. The AVL sends Gru and his family to a safe house. He's to pretend he's a solar panel salesman. Gru's wife Lucy is going to be a hairdresser and the three girls are going to the local school. Gru tries to be friendly to the uptight neighbors, only the wife seems to like Gru and Lucy. Poppy, the neighbor's daughter is a bit of a stuck up bitch but she comes to like the family after she blackmails Gru into helping her steal Gru's old schoolmaster's honey badger.
The Minions get taken in by AVL and 5 of them are enhanced with superpowers. They cause a lot of damage in the HQ and around the city. The safe house is outed and Maxime attacks. There's some running about, collateral damage and plenty of jeopardy. Eventually it all works out for Gru, his family and their pals.
There were some good laughs, even a couple of out loud ones. I'd watch it again some time, perhaps have a marathon of the series.