Popular reviews

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  Review by Sean Gilman ★★★★ 1

  Fun, goofy hitman movie with really cool and creative action sequences and a clever premise. Why hadn't i heard anything about this until yesterday? It's streaming on Netflix. 74 million people should watch it instead of Red Notice.

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  Review by Randa ★★★★

  Walked into this film didn't know anything about it, or "Manga" heritage, but I'm watching this thinking, "This is clever filmmaking." Everything I respect about samurai & assassin movies is tied together nicely here. Not quite a comedy, but this over-the-top yet subtle Japanese humor that made me go, "Damn, this is fun."

  
  Final Score : 80% 🍎

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  Review by KD_ ★★★★ 1

  I must admit that my expectations were rather low going in, but the action slapped in a way I didn’t expect it to! After a hesitant start, I got fully on board quickly. The Osaka setting was a hit too. Very enjoyable film.

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  Review by More_Badass ★★★

  Bookended by thrillingly stylish and dynamic action - think John Wick by way of Jackie Chan Stunt Team - but with a more mixed and messy middle chunk. Kan Eguchi’s The Fable is another live-action manga adaptation, and the tangled story sure feels like a bunch of plotlines stuffed into two hours. That said, whether the focus is on Yakuza turf war, rival hitman fanboys, or socially-awkward comedy as our “homicidal genius” lives his mundane day-to-day, Junichi Okada rules as the titular assassin. So does Fumino Kimura as charming handler Yoko. Their pairing is endearing and entertaining throughout, even when the movie struggles to connect all its threads. 

  Still a very slick and fun action-comedy (emphasis on the latter), although I wish Eguchi used the film’s murder-mathematics overlay more. Such a neat twist on Sherlock/Equalizer’s hyper-capable foresight, that pretty much vanishes after a few scenes.

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  Review by Noah Thompson ★★½

  Now this is ordinary.

  Essentially The Man from Nowhere with a tad more comedy and a lot less melodrama. That sounds like exactly my bag. This and its sequel, which just dropped on Netflix, caught my attention on Twitter through some action film folks I follow, and yeah, looked like my jam. Sadly, didn't really ever get to vibe with it much beyond its intriguing opening. To me, as an action comedy, its action should have been better placed throughout the feature, and the film should have been much, much funnier. There is one bit with the protagonist that I genuinely thought was wonderful where he watches this horribly unfunny comedian do bits on a television show, and you see…

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  Review by Joanne ★★★★

  This dude is awesome! What a character! This has got to be based on a manga right?! I will go and investigate after I drop my excited ramblings off…
  A very, VERY nice action sandwich, with plenty of oddball laughs served up in the middle from the assassin extraordinaire. Sato/Fable had me smiling from start to finish. His variety of OTT and no-key humour really hit the right spot with me. When the rest of the cast try for laughs, it definitely doesn’t work as well, especially bad dude pain in the ass Kojima, but it’s all forgivable in this hell of a good time movie. Starts with a bang of a yakuza hit, and then it’s pretty quiet on…

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  Review by Cinema_Strikes ★★★½

  The story and tropes are old school Yakuza 101 - we’ve got a hit man protagonist hiding out with a local crime family, the rivals looking to rub him out, the honorable local aniki, the wild card young hoodlum causing trouble, the innocent damsel in distress. It’s basically every episode of Outlaw Gangster: VIP. But instead of being entirely serious, it’s about half silly as hell. And the action rocks. Nothing outstanding, but if you’re looking for a fun, low-key action-comedy you could do a lot worse.

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  Review by Grant McLanaghan ★★★★

  A comedic action film about a devastatingly effective hitman whose reputation has made him an urban legend.

  Following his most recent mission, Sato (Jun’ichi Okada) is ordered by his mentor to go to ground, live a normal life and refrain from killing anyone for a year. But since he’s a “savant”, as one character puts it, what exactly constitutes ‘normal’? For this assassin, killing people for a living *is* normal. And so he wrestles with the notion while trying to keep a low profile.

  Unfortunately, he finds himself sheltered by a crime boss whose foot soldiers include a dangerously ambitious loose cannon. And another young man who’s just done eight years for murder – a genuine psychopath who seems incapable…

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  Review by Jarrel Montes ★★★½

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Professionally ordinary.

  A low key hidden gem in Netflix that was recommended to me by someone I totally forgot, I apologize but hey at least I enjoyed it. Great mixture of action and comedy with some interesting and colorful characters, well the supporting ones at least but the lead still had me laughing with his strange antics. It plays out like a manga and that's probably the source material since the dialogue is so expressive. The performances are all great, I enjoyed the mafia guys a lot even if they were a tad one dimensional. The fight choreography is over the top but very cool to watch, the special effects on the other hand weren't the best but good enough…

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  Review by Justin Decloux ★★★½

  Fun, but it left me wanting more. I love the idea of the best assassin in the world having to live a normal life, which is tough when you're a real weirdo, but the film keeps cutting away to characters I don't care about. Gimme more fish out of water comedy! On the action front, the bullet ballet choreography is great, but it's limited to the opening and a lengthy climax, so plan accordingly.

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  Review by Des Saint ★★½

  I can't believe I am watching this goofy Japanese crime dramedy.
  I guess I am just curious as to how much goofier it can get.
  Ok, so the fight and shoot them up choreography is great, so I'll add 1/2 a star to the silliness.
  Rurouni Kenshin idea got copied and made into a crime dramedy and if they don't mind, I don't either.

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  Review by Jamerlich ★★★★

  Hitman/Yakuza comedies have been popular since about 2015, the source material for this started in 2014.

  I stumbled upon "The Fable" while trying to figure out why Kodansha USA out all their simulpubs on hiatus. It sounded interesting and I thought watching the adaptation on my parents Netflix account would be less time consuming and cheaper than picking up a volume.

  Well, rip my time and wallet I'm picking it up because "The Fable' was pretty fun and it's actual art looks cool. What if John Wick had even less people skills and was forced to not kill anyone for a whole yr? That's basically the premise here. His complete lack of social skills is pretty funny as he dryly talks about eating lizards and watermelon rinds. The gun fight in the climax is pretty sweet and balletic. If I wasn't switching to the manga I would probably immediately check out the sequel to see if it's as good.