Sansho the Bailiff, Nothing Special

    Sansho the Bailiff is a Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. It's highly regarded as a great piece of Japanese cinema, but I have to be honest, I did not enjoy it. The film certainly has some great things going for it such as the plot and direction, but man is it too long at only two hours and twelve minutes.
    I have adored all expect for one of Akira Kurosawa's films that I have seen, and yes sometimes the length gets irritating, but never to the point of true noticeability. Seven Samurai for example is fantastic, and it runs a whopping three hours and twenty-seven minutes. I haveno problem with Kurosawa's grand length because everything is interesting, Sansho the Bailiff not so much. The first thirty minutes could have easily been cut down. There were several scenes of just prolonged sequences of a character walking. Seriously, who thought that a thirty second take of a person moving slower than a worm would be good? It makes no sense to me.
    Overall I did think Sansho the Bailiff was an average movie, and for having 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, that shouldn't be the case. I personally think that this film just hasn't aged well, and because of that it has lost a lot of what has made it great.