Despite having a rich and varied filmography, director Masato Harada is still best known internationally for playing the villainous industrialist Omura in “The Last Samurai.” Edward Zwick’s 2003 movie took one of the messiest periods in Japan’s past and transformed it into a rousing, clear-cut tale of heroism starring Tom Cruise.
Now Harada has revisited the same era with “Baragaki: Unbroken Samurai,” a more sober-minded film, set in the turbulent years leading up to the Meiji Restoration of 1868, which charts the rise and fall of the notorious Shinsengumi samurai corps.
Like his earlier historical epic “Sekigahara” (2017), this dense, breathless movie seems designed to edify more than entertain. But while the screenplay’s constant data dumps can get exhausting, there’s a real gusto to the filmmaking. “Baragaki: Unbroken Samurai” is as bracing as getting smacked in the face with a history book.