Blades, Blood, and Brushstrokes: The Art of The One in Red
Samurai cinema has always danced between the clang of steel and the silence of reflection. Nicholas Muzzillo’s The One in Red enters this tradition boldly, offering a short film that feels at once reverent and deeply personal. The premise, one ronin clad in red, burdened by a troubled past, pursued by a hunter in gray,could have been told a hundred ways. But Muzzillo chooses the painter’s brush.
The first thing you notice? The cinematography. Each frame could be a woodblock print: light spilling across a blade, fabric catching the wind like a whispered memory, shadows carving out loneliness as much as danger. The costuming serves not just as wardrobe but as character. The atmosphere is thick, immersive, and deliberately unsettling, heightened by sound design that rattles bones and a score that hums like an elegy.
But beyond the aesthetic pleasures, there’s a clear directorial vision. Muzzillo’s use of framing and light is surgical, you can feel his influences (Kurosawa, Kobayashi, even Samurai Jack) yet his choices never feel imitative. Instead, he bends them into a singular, meditative style. You watch not just a duel, but a philosophy in motion: two ronin as reflections of guilt, wisdom, and the human need for meaning.
That said, the film isn’t without flaws. The pacing at times wavers, lingering long where urgency would sharpen impact. An older cast might also have deepened the gravitas; a seasoned face carries history before a word is spoken, and in a story about burdened pasts, that weight matters.
Still, these are quibbles more than failings. The One in Red isn’t just a student short, it’s a cinematic sketch of ambition, talent, and artistic hunger. It shows us that Muzzillo isn’t simply experimenting; he’s carving a path, red as blood, toward the kind of storytelling that lingers in memory like a scar.
So, is the Red Ronin doomed, or saved? Is he a ghost walking toward oblivion, or a man grasping at redemption? Muzzillo leaves us with questions sharper than any blade. And really what more can you ask from a filmmaker still at the dawn of his journey?
