Mixing Samurais with Machine Guns

Ever played role playing games? Growing up in the 80's, I was exposed to Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller, etc., and while I seldom played - I always enjoyed making the characters rather than playing the game - my friends did, and after playing the same sword and sorcery scenario for the millionth time, someone got the bright idea of spicing things up by introducing modern day soldiers and throwing them into Middle Earth. There was a lot of fun with that, and that concept is used in this movie, Time Slip 1549, which came out in Japan last year. It is about modern day soldiers, who in a secret government experiment, are somehow thrown back almost 450 years into the past, into the feudal battles between warlords. The first platoon was lost in the first experiment; two years later the government tries again. They know that they were sent into the past, because, after the area they were in disappears, then reappears, so does a lone samurai. They recruit a man who used to be a part of the original platoon, and along with the woman who was in charge of the first experiment, and another platoon, are sent back into the past. There they encounter machine gun toting samurais dressed in camoflauge armor, the lone helicopter from the first group wipes out the new platoons' air support, and a lot of people are killed before they are captured and brought to a castle near Mt Fuji, which is a combination of a classic feudal warlord castle and an oil refinery. Yes, the leader of the first platoon, realizing that there was no way to get back home, decides to become ruler of this universe, easily overcoming the local warlords and accumulating a fighting force of great magnitude. Complete with tanks. This two hour epic was made in honor of the 60th anniversary of Kadokawa Pictures. The movie, related to but not a remake of G.I. Samurai, starring Sonny Chiba, is a fun action movie, not to be taken too seriously. Otherwise the warts and seams will show, and yes, the ending drags on for about 10 minutes too long, as they feel the need to push all the emotional buttons. One subcontext that I found interesting was here we have the modern Japanese military, reformed in organization and in spirit after World War II, tossed back into time where everybody was at war with each other. And the modern soldiers gets their asses kicked! So for them to survive, the original platoon guys rediscover their old fighting spirit, the way of the samurai, as do the second group, but in a slightly different (and of course, a more positive) way. Worth a rental!