Goemon Ishikawa's Spray of Blood is the final movie in the Fujiko Mine series, though poses itself as a solid stand-alone film. This is my rewatch of the movie, having watched through the Fujiko Mine series, so my expectations were obviously already high considering I knew what I was walking into.
It comes as no surprise that the production quality of the movie was incredibly high, arguably higher than the previous film, Jigen's Gravestone. Since there was a focus on samurai, an incredibly amount of focus was put into the fight choreography and the cinematography generally stuck out and helped to how casual everyone in comparison to Goemon in their attitude towards everything. The OST was quite different from the Fujiko series and the Jigen movie, it was still a little jazzy, but largely it leaned on a more traditional Japanese soundtrack which fit the Samurai theme well.
Goemon is contracted to protect the boss of the Yakuza, but due to the incredibly strength of the assassin he faces, he fails. As an honour bound Samurai, Goemon vows to defeat 'The Hawk' in vengeance for the death of his employer and to gain redemption for his failure. Being that this is a Lupin III movie, The Hawk is also contracted to kill Lupin and the gang too though this doesn't feel entirely unnatural as, well he's the worlds most wanted thief, so it's expected that he would have a price on his head. We follow Goemon through his failures and subsequent training, to come to an incredibly satisfying and, shockingly brutal conclusion. There is a minor complaint to be made about the pacing of the story however, as Goemon's training overstays its welcome somewhat, and borders on absurd at times. This doesn't become too much of a distraction but was still frustrating in breaking the pacing.
The pacing issues only hold back Goemon Ishikawa's Spray of Blood form becoming a masterpiece, it still holds up strongly as an epic action-samurai flick. Being backed up by exceptional production qualities, Goemon's movie serves as the perfect fanservice for fans of Goemon giving him long needed focus on his personal Samurai Code.
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