Unites Ozu and Kurosawa's cinema. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 5, 2020

Tradition, love and intimacy are intertwined in the beautiful Japanese film Love and Honor. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 21, 2018

the movie has only one sword fight, and it consists of only three or four swings of the blade, but don't let that dissuade you. You won't be bored.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 2, 2009

Feudal honour is challenged by love with overwhelming consequences. Even die hard Zatoichi-ites will admire the deftness of Yamada's masterly direction.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 12, 2008

It's a satisfying story, played out in decorous period surroundings of the classic warrior tale but Yamada's 79th film lacks any hint of surprise or excitement.

| Original Score: 2/6 | Dec 12, 2008

Intricate, artfully constructed and utterly assured, Love And Honour is essential viewing for anyone who has seen Yamada's earlier samurai films. If you haven't, don't miss the chance to see what is a finely tuned example of the genre.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 12, 2008

The storytelling is all rather flat, as is the lighting. And the duel, when it finally comes, is something of an anticlimax.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 12, 2008

A fervent, sweet-natured tragic romance.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 12, 2008

Gently paced and delicately played, give this long enough and it becomes a compelling watch that eventually rewards any moral aspirations with a splendid Zatoichi-style scrap that manages to stay its welcome.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 12, 2008

The third in director Yoji Yamada's Samurai Trilogy is an enjoyable, well acted drama, with a superb climactic swordfight and a plot that seems to have been lifted straight out of Hollywood melodrama.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 12, 2008

Veteran director Yamada continues to examine issues of duty and loyalty, sharply using matter-of-fact period detail and deep characterisations.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 12, 2008

A very satisfying tale that emphasizes one of the genre's key themes: The deepest wound a samurai may suffer does not come from any blade.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 19, 2008

dyskoleyetai na kratisei ypo elegho toys melodramatismoys tis, kai sto deytero miso tis se krataei men me sfigmena ta heria ap' tin agonia, katorthoma, omos, poy den eimai sigoyros oti einai kai toso dyskolo, otan s' ehei paei os ekei me ta sagonia tentom

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 16, 2008

Final installment in samurai trilogy that features a blind swordsman in an utterly distinct fashion from the Zatoichi movies--a far more vulnerable and far more believable hero.

| Sep 7, 2008

An impeccably made classic Japanese period picture in which a nobility of spirit is tested amid the most beautiful of settings, revealing the harshness and hypocrisy of a feudal society of the utmost formality and rigidity.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 5, 2008

Thanks to its focus on internal struggle and domestically confined drama, Love and Honor is the wilting lily of Yamada's trilogy, albeit an exceptionally satisfying romance.

| Jul 30, 2008

Gracefully directed, deliberately paced and intentionally free of the action you'd expect from a samurai film, all of which makes its climactic confrontation that much more effective.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 18, 2008

It's an exquisitely crafted melodrama, moving with stately grace toward an understated yet forceful quest for revenge.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 11, 2008

The film is void of action until a final duel that is staged with a believability that makes the supernatural skill displayed in most blind swordsman films seem preposterous.

| Original Score: B | Jul 11, 2008

Love and Honor is a welcome affirmation of Yamada's determination to maintain his historic workload, even while in his 70s.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 20, 2008