Samurai Marathon

British director Bernard Rose, producer Jeremy Thomas and composer Philip Glass bring Japanese history to exhilarating life with this lavish jidaigeki, set against the 1850s arrival of the infamous “black ships” that brought an end to Japan’s centuries of isolation. When feudal lord Itakura Katsuakira decides to prepare his samurai troops for the onslaught of modernization by having them compete in a marathon, his independent-minded daughter Yuki (Komatsu Nana in a breakout role) secretly joins the race. Things get complicated when the shogun’s spies mistake the run for an uprising, and send a squad of assassins to quell it. (New York Asian Film Festival)