禅
Plots(1)
The film tells the story of a Zen Buddhist teacher Dogen Zenji who was a leading religious figure 750 years ago, during the Kamakura period. After losing his mother, he decides to perform the ascetic training in China to become a Buddhist teacher. One summer morning, enlightened Dogen returns to Japan and devotes himself as an evangelist of the new Buddhism. But the new form was unacceptable and a community begins taking steps to suppress. . . (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (1)
A ridiculous movie saying how that Dōgen is great and zazen is even better, and people are generally stupid... A boring movie about Dōgen's life, which of course takes its liberties, with a couple of actors that have a big name in Japan. And it’s precisely those actors who only bark or fail to make an impression, or who have no point or purpose for the film, its story, or its development. The film, in a certain episodic way, tells the story of a monk's life (his mama said go be a Buddhist, so he didn't dawdle and just went). And it's incredibly boring. And it has an astonishingly long running time for all that boredom; I was wishing he would die halfway through the film, and even that dying took an awfully long time. Anyway, every Japanologist knows that Dōgen died doing zazen, so we were just waiting to see which one. :-D I don't know, while I was watching it I was almost disgusted by the film’s pandering, its representation, and what it was trying to say. I understand why it got such a rating on FilmBooster (or anywhere else), but for me it was just a weak thing I was incredibly bored with. You’re better off reading his biography for the hundredth time. The part in China was the most boring part, when he went back to Japan, at least it was a change, I was like “great, it's going to get interesting", and it probably was for a bit. A little bit.
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