Brave: Gunjyo Senki (2021)

Brave: Gunjyo Senki (2021)
Japanese title: ブレイブ 群青戦記
Translation: Brave Ultramarine Battle Record

 

Starring: Mackenyu, Haruma Miura, Keisuke Watanabe, Noboyuki Suzuki, Hirona Yamazaki, Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Suguru Adachi, Shôdai Fukuyama, Tatsuomi Hamada, Tomohiro Ichikawa, Hiroki Iijima, Kaho Mizutani, Takuro Osada 
Director: Katsuyuki Motohiro
Action Director:  n/a

 

It's an ordinary day at the Seitouku Academy, one of the best producers of champion athletes in Japan. All of the clubs--baseball, karate, kendo, archery, boxing, etc.--are tending to their respective practices. We meet our main characters, a talented-but-underachieving archer named Ao Nishino (Mackenyu, son of Sonny Chiba) and his female BFF Haruka (Monster Hunter’s Hirona Yamazaki). Completing the threesome of friends is Kouta, their more self-asured kendo club leader (Noboyuki Suzuki, of Tokyo Ghoul), who is off doing kendo stuff with his colleagues.

There lives are changed forever when a freak lightning storm hits, transporting the entire school to some plain that none of the students recognize. Out of nowhere, an army of men armed with swords and kama (or sickles) pour out of the nearby forest and fall upon the student body. I’m pretty sure about two-thirds of the 300+ student population is cut down in the ensuing massacre. The only reason that anyone survives is that the different sports clubs finally “come to” and start using their respective skills against the marauders. The leader of the armed men, a masked samurai named Yanada (Kamen Rider Zi-Oh's Keisuke Watanabe), rounds up his men and takes several of the students hostage.

The first person to figure out what's going on is Aoi Nishino, who is a history buff as much as he’s an archer. From the name and dress of Yanada, he deduces that they have been transported back to the Sengoku Period, specifically the year A.D. 1560, a few days before the Battle of Okehazama. Yanada was an officer in the army of Nobunaga Oda, the man know to history as the guy who started the Japan unification campaign. That would mean that the other army that shows up after Yanada’s withdrawal is being led by Motoyasu Matsudeira (Haruma Miura, of Attack on Titans). While that name isn’t immediately recognizable, Nishino knows that he would go on to change his name to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the fellow who established the centuries-running Tokugawa Shogunate.

However, prior to Ieyasu’s continuation of Nobunaga’s Ambition, he served under a rival daimyo named Imegawa Yoshimoto. It was after the upcoming Battle of Okehazama that Ieyasu switched sides, so for now, Matsudeira is their tentative ally. Nishino and Kouta are able to convince Matsudeira that they are not enemies and that they need to storm Yanada’s fort to rescue their comrades. Matsudeira relents, although he doesn’t have any men to spare. That means that the best athletes of the Seitoku Academy are going to have to draw up the courage to venture into enemy territory and face off with Yanada’s army by themselves.

There are two “but’s” that should be considered. The surviving school nerds have figured out that the Sacred Stone that adorns the school courtyard has mystical magnetic properties that reacts with electrical storms. That means that in a couple of days, according to their calculations (or historical record), there will be another storm that will present them with a short window with which to travel home. That gives our heroes a short deadline to do the impossible.

Second, we later learn that Yanada isn’t the historical Yanada. Instead, he is a former Seitoku student named Rui Fuwa who went missing the year beore. Despite his martial prowess, Rui was a loner with a mindset of a school shooter. Armed with the knowledge of history and an axe to grind, he’s ready to really screw up history for good. That means that rescuing the hostages—who are being raped and murdered by the day—isn’t enough: our heroes will have to protect history, too.

Brave: Gunjyo Senki plays like the Toy Soldiers version of G.I. Samurai (or more specifically, its remake Samurai Commando Mission 1549) with a strong helping of Born to Fight (and a dash of Back to the Future), what with a bunch of athletes using their skills against an army that is better armed than they are. What it isn't, unfortunately, is as fun as either of those two films. It's a bleak, violent affair (not that those aren't) with most of the Ra-Ra action replaced with LOTS of melodrama and tragic deaths, not to mention a huge helping of teenagers being slaughtered wholesale.

There is obviously more character development here than in Born to Fight, where characters barely had any defining characteristics beyond their individual athletic skills. The baseball and (American) football clubs are team players dedicated to rescuing their kidnapped colleagues, completely willing to put their lives on the line to save a single teamate. The karate expert and the fencing expert are initially at odds—the latter is a bit of an elitist who looks down at his “vulgar” counterpart—but eventually set aside their differences to fight in tandem. Most importantly, Nishino Aoi has the complete arc, having to overcome his lack of self-confidence that has always kept him below his potential and rise to the occasion for the good of others—at one point, his mission becomes intensely personal.

On the other hand, the historical figures are a bit more one-dimensional. Motoyasu Matsudeira (later Tokugawa Ieyasu) is little more than a wisdom dispenser for Aoi, although he is involved in one of the plot’s biggest twists. Likewise, Nobunaga Oda is an honorable figure, even if its his army that represents the film’s antagonists. On the other hand, while the villain’s motivations kind of make sense, we never really find out what his actual plans are. We know he aims to change history for the worse, but how he intends to do it is rather murky. I’m guessing he plans on killing historical figures like Hideyoshi and Ieyasu in battle before eventually usurping Nobunaga Oda and molding a unified Japan in his image. But that’s never clear.

Action-wise, this film doesn’t really cover much new ground. Born to Fight did the whole “athletes vs military” bit better. Some viewers may enjoy watching high school kids do American football tackles on samurai foot soldiers or the fencing and karate kids teaming up against their enemies, but much of the choreography is traditional Japanese style swordplay, without any of the stylish Hong Kong (or Thai) touches that other movies from the Land of the Rising Sun have enjoyed in the past 20 years. Fans of Japanese period pieces may find something to enjoy here, while action junkies may appreciate the no-holds barred, take-no-prisoners approach to the action. Nobody wears plot armor in this film.