- Posts: 2300
- Thank you received: 2650
Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)
Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.
I want to watch Kurosawa's Samurai epics. Thoughts?
- Erik Twice
- Topic Author
- Offline
- D8
- Needs explosions
I really dig Kagemusha's premise though I'm told it's a very slow film! Still recommend it or should I check another one?
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Posts: 619
- Thank you received: 336
Seven Samurai
Ran
Yojimbo
The Hidden Fortress
Throne of Blood
Kagemusha
I don't know what your tolerance for slow movies are but nearly all of them have some slow build up but all of them in my opinion are worth the trip.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Posts: 1728
- Thank you received: 771
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Michael Barnes
- Offline
- Mountebank
- HYPOCRITE
- Posts: 16929
- Thank you received: 10375
They are all pretty slow films- they aren't action pictures. They are also somewhat culturally remote for Western audiences, but less so than some of the other second tier samurai pictures.
I think Ran is probably the most accessible despite its length and long-ass prologue that puts off some folks.
All great films. But I enjoy the Lone Wolf and Cub films more. More pulp and less art, but there it is.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
My favorite is Seven Samurai. But any of the aforementioned are amazing.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
As a side-note, Tony Zhou has a Youtube channel that's worth diving into: www.youtube.com/user/everyframeapainting
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Rashomon is great if you want to diverge from the Samurai epics.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Dogmatix wrote: Isn't Hidden Fortress the film that the first Star Wars flick riffed on? I can't recall now. My personal list puts Yojimbo above Ran, but that's mostly because I love watching Toshiro Mifune's samurai roles....
Yes, but you need to squint a little to see the resemblance between A Hidden Fortress and Star Wars. It's not a blatant imitation in the way that The Force Awakens shamelessly ripped off every single plot point from Star Wars.
Most of the rest of Kurosawa's samurai movies were either inspired by Shakespeare or in turn inspired other movies.
The Seven Samurai - inspired the western The Magnifficent Seven
Ran - based on King Lear
Yojimbo - inspired A Fistful of Dollars
Sanjuro - A Few Dollars More
Throne of Blood - based on Macbeth
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Erik Twice
- Topic Author
- Offline
- D8
- Needs explosions
- Posts: 2300
- Thank you received: 2650
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Erik Twice
- Topic Author
- Offline
- D8
- Needs explosions
- Posts: 2300
- Thank you received: 2650
This is a beautiful film. In fact, this might be the most colorful live-action movie I've ever seen, practically every shot has hugely contrasting colours: Banners, armour, the sun, the sand of the landscape, the actors clothes...And it's colorful in a very natural way, it's not unrealistic and not overdone enough to be magical, more often than not the main colour of a scene is given simply by the weather or other natural occurence.
Part of the beauty of each shot comes from the fact that each character, important or not, is given its own expression, personality and pose. Even when castle guards just look around, each one does it differently and no two characters share the same walk. The famous damiyo not only are instantly recognizable, but so are their values and worldview, probably best exemplified with Nobunaga's western clothing and Takeda's armour and helmet.
It's also one of those films that can be read in many different ways. At its ideological core sits a question of truth and illusion, but it also works as a more realistic drama or simply as a take on an interesting premise. This is something I really like on films so it was a pleasant surprise for me.
But for all the stuff I liked of Kagemusha, it didn't sit too well with me. At times it seemed scenes dragged on for too long (I can see why the western cut is 16 minutes shorter) and the final act feels overly anticlimatic. I watched it with a friend and while we loved the film, by the time we reached the end we growing a bit tired. By the end, it seemed like most of the themes of the film had already been resolved and everything else was going through the motions. It also seems to narrow down too heavily, by the end the Kagemusha has stopped being a character and functions purely as a symbol, which works on an ideological level but takes away many of the possible interpretations (The final attack is so obviously suicidal so as to stop being believeable, for example)
Still, it has piqued my interest. I think I'll watch other Kurosawa films someday, there was a lot of stuff I liked.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.