Samurai Films

Let's start off with THE classic samurai film: Seven Samurai directed by the late, great Akira Kurosawa. If you haven't seen this classic yet, rent it, buy it, sit down and watch it. It's a bit long, but this will set the stage for all other samurai movies to come. It's the story of a small village of poor farmers who are being harassed by some no-good bandits. Not knowing what else to do, the farmers go into town to hire some samurai to protect them. Nobody wants to help out these wretched farmers, but one noble samurai agrees to help them out of pity. This samurai finds 6 more samurai to help him thwart the bandits. Can only seven samurai save an entire village from a bunch of bandits? Find out and see!

Some notable points about this film: As you'll see with most Kurosawa films, Seven Samurai is a social commentary about post-war Japan. Most Japanese were ashamed and deeply sorry for the havoc they caused during WWII, and Kurosawa was no different. Directors and writers of this time started going back to their classical era - the era of the samurai for reflection and source material to find out what it meant to be truly Japanese. Kurosawa wanted to reflect the samurai not as blood-thirsty warriors fighting for land, but as compassionate nobility looking after their less-fortunate brothers. Seven Samurai is not only a classic example of power-to-the-people, but a spark that establishes the samurai mythos as more than just sword-wielding fighters.

The great Toshiro Mifune dominates the staring role in yet another Akira Kurosawa masterpiece. Unlike Seven Samurai where Mifune plays a brash, uncouth wannabe samurai, in Yojimbo (translation: Bodyguard), Mifune is the Clint Eastwood of feudal Japan (in fact, Clint Eastwood can thank Mifune and Kurosawa for his career. He modeled his trademark acting style on Toshiro Mifune when Sergio Leone remade Yojimbo renaming it A Fistful of Dollars).

In the story, a corrupt little town is being run by two rival gangs of samurai thugs. In strolls the cool and collected Yojimbo who decides to have some fun with the gangs and town-folk. He toys with everyone, making the foolish looking even more the fool. And he might just decide to bring some old-school justice to the town if he feels they deserve it. A story of wit, cunning, and some flashy sword moves.

And now for a non-Kurosawa film. Yes, Kurosawa is the master, but there's so much more out there! Sword of Doom is one of those films (directed by Kihachi Okamoto). While Toshiro Mifune only plays a supporting role in this movie, the main character is the samurai of real interest. Drunk on his own prowess as a young, unbeatable swordsman, the main character become more insane by the minute as his mind sinks into full-on madness from the death and destruction he's caused. Lots of great cinematography and excellent sword fighting scenes. This is the one to see if you just want to see some samurai sword violence plain and simple (but the story is very compelling as well).

(also called Seppuku in some titles) Another little known film that's been over looked by most. Directed by Masaki Kobayashi, Harakiri is a touching and sometimes gruesome story about a man seeking revenge. I can't give away too much of the plot, but there's some merciless killings and acts of honor by a lowly samurai in the face of the supposedly "upper" class of his samurai peers. Definitely worth seeing.

I hope you get a chance to see some of these films and come to love samurai films as much as I do. These four movies that I've selected are only a primer for the many classic (and sometimes not so classic) samurai films waiting for you to watch. You can get almost all of them online and many have been restored for premium picture and sound quality. So, just because a film is old and in black and white doesn't make it a bad film. In fact, some of these films have set the stage for many of our modern films. Enjoy!

If you'd like to add to your samurai DVD collection, check out this site: Samurai DVDs

Or, you can scroll down and see more of my samurai DVD favorites.

To find out about some real samurai swords, check out this site: Samurai Sword Site

• Did you know some Spaghetti Westerns were influenced directly by Samurai films? Sergio Leone remade Yojimbo calling it A Fistful of Dollars. It was a huge hit for Clint and Sergio. Many Westerns have since been modeled after the samurai mythos (including Seven Samurai which was remade into The Magnificent Seven). The tough, lone gun-slinger was first made popular by Toshiro Mifune in Yojimbo and Sanjuro (as a Samurai sword-slinger, of course).
  
  
• kira Kurosawa's 80's film Ran was based on Shakespeare's play King Lear.
  
  
• Kurosawa's 50's film Throne of Blood was based on Shakespeare's play Macbeth.
  
  
• George Lucas was a huge fan of both Kurosawa and myth-master Joseph Campbell. He took ancient mythology as presented by Campbell and mixed it with the samurai sensibility of Kurosawa to create Star Wars. Some say Lucas borrowed much of the story for Star Wars from Kurosawa's 50's movie The Hidden Fortress.