I watched the original Hidden Fortress a few weeks ago and had way too much fun with the comedy, characters, and plot. You can't beat Mifune Toshiro as Makabe Rokurota and Uehara Misa as Yukihime.

I wasn't expecting much from the remake, I had a bad feeling when I saw Jun Matsumoto playing one of the peasants and clearly built up to be a love interest for Yukihime, but BOY was I disappointed with this one. They made so many baffling choices with the story and characters, but what annoyed me the most is how they ruined Makabe's character. Abe Hiroshi did his best to bring Mifune's character to life and I respect him a lot for that (same with Miyagawa Daisuke as the other peasant), but they basically turned him into your archetypical angry bodyguard with no charm or depth, as shallow as a puddle. Gyoe (Gyobu in this movie) was watered down into a boring one-dimensional villain and Takezo (Matsumoto Jun's character) turned into a completely different person by the second half of the film. There were too many unnecessary twists and turns that didn't make sense and ruined the message behind the story, but the final twist is probably the worst one.

The fight scenes were actually pretty fun though, the set design was great and the music by Naoki Sato is as good as always. It's a fun action-adventure flick you can check out when you're bored and don't know what to watch but as a remake? Please skip it.