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× Talk abut Movies & TV here. Just tell us what you have been watching. Have hyper-academic discussions on visual semiotics. Whatever, it's all good.

I want to watch Kurosawa's Samurai epics. Thoughts?

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05 Jun 2016 12:53 #228613 by Erik Twice
I've been playing Nobunaga's Ambition quite a lot lately and it has put me on the mood for a samurai film. Which made me think of the films of Kurosawa and how I'm enough of a philistine to have never watched any of them. Seems like a good chance to kill two birds with the same stone and I really trust the Fortress' opinion on the topic, so, which would you recommend?

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?

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05 Jun 2016 16:57 - 05 Jun 2016 16:59 #228625 by Brewmiester
My personal order would be

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.
Last edit: 05 Jun 2016 16:59 by Brewmiester.
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05 Jun 2016 17:34 #228630 by DukeofChutney
I would say that Yojimbo and Sanjuro are the most straight up fun, but they are not epics. Ran and Kagemusha from memory have the most battles and Ran has a great ending. Seven Samurai and Rashomon are famous for their story telling and solid films. If you like the premise form kagemusha go for that. They are all quite slow films that are more interested in their characters than action. I really enjoy most of the Kuroshawa films i've seen on first watch, Yojimbo and Sanjuro are the only ones I have really enjoyed on the rewatch.
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05 Jun 2016 18:20 #228632 by Michael Barnes
Brewmeister's list is exactly the same as mine, down the line.

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.
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05 Jun 2016 22:50 #228641 by dysjunct
You really can't go wrong. Kurosawa was a master of his craft. Pick one. Pick any.

My favorite is Seven Samurai. But any of the aforementioned are amazing.
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05 Jun 2016 23:07 #228643 by jeb
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06 Jun 2016 06:57 #228645 by JEM
If you only want to watch one, I would suggest Seven Samurai. It's not a sweeping epic, but it is excellent. It's one of Kurosawa's movies that borrowed heavily from western cowboy movies so it's not so culturally remote.

As a side-note, Tony Zhou has a Youtube channel that's worth diving into: www.youtube.com/user/everyframeapainting
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06 Jun 2016 08:56 #228653 by charlest
Brewmeister's list is spot on.

Rashomon is great if you want to diverge from the Samurai epics.
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06 Jun 2016 13:53 #228671 by Shellhead
Brewmeister's list is solid, though I might be tempted to move Yojimbo below A Hidden Fortress. I've seen Kagemusha but can't remember anything about it except for a recurring line about "The mountain does not move." I haven't seen Sanjuro yet, though I recently bought a used dvd of it. I suspect that Ran was the direct inspiration for the Legend of the Five Rings ccg that lasted for 20 years. FFG picked up the rights to L5R last year, but I haven't heard anything since Asmodee acquired FFG.
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06 Jun 2016 22:02 #228690 by Dogmatix
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....
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07 Jun 2016 11:32 #228698 by Shellhead

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
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07 Jun 2016 13:31 #228701 by JEM
Getting a little off-topic, but the "rip off" in Star Wars trilogies seems to be deliberate, and was there in the prequels also.

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09 Jun 2016 14:21 #228787 by Erik Twice
I'm really thankful for your posts, they have been really insightful and that video about Kurosawa and movement is great. Sadly, I'm going to be superbusy for the rest of the week so I can't watch any of the movies for now. But I'll report once I do :)

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10 Jun 2016 19:25 #228831 by Erik Twice
Ok, so I finally watched Kagemusha.

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.
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