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After much delay and winter illness, here's the coverage of my top three picks in the samurai cinema genre. It makes sense to group them as their relative rankings to one another can vary on my mood, the phase of the moon, and… well, you get it. So, drumroll if you please…
KILL!
This may be the most fun film in my whole countdown. Kill!, directed by Kihachi Okamoto and starring genre staple Tatsuya Nakadai, is a dark comedy set in the Edo period. It's sourced from the same story that served as the foundation for Kurosawa's "Sanjuro", but the two films only have a vague resemblance.
Kill!'s main characters are a samurai who is trying to be walk away from his position and live a normal life and a peasant who desperately wants to become a samurai. Though their lives are taking them in different directions they find a common cause when they get caught up in a clan's deadly vendetta… and hilarity ensues, though in a dry, understated way.
This is the film that finally made me understand Nakadai's status as a genre legend. He plays a very different character from most of his other roles, which are often brooding and arrogant. Here he's wonderfully likeable and easy going – almost to a fault. In the long run I think this may be the piece of Samurai cinema that I revisit the most.
YOJIMBO
I'm now in that territory of films that need little to no introduction. Another dark comedy, "Yojimbo" (Japanese for "bodyguard") is a Kurosawa masterpiece that introduces Toshiro Mifune's nameless samurai. This films plot and setting was pretty much swiped wholesale by Sergio Leone as "A Fistful of Dollars", launching that director's "man with no name" saga. But it's not too surprising as the film is a sort of homage by Kurosawa to the Western film genre.
Mifune's character from this film is just as iconic as Eastwood's in Leone's epic. The character went on to have three more film adventures, though only one more would be done by Kurosawa: "Sanjuro" (Japanese for thirty-something male).
And now…
THE SEVEN SAMURAI
Aw, c'mon, you knew it was coming. This is not only this the king of the genre, but it's one of my top five films of all time in all genres. Like "Yojimbo", the story drew the attention of Western film makers who adapted the story to make the successful "The Magnificent Seven", but I feel this original is vastly superior to the American work on nearly every level.
:thumb205439090:
It's a simple story: a bandit-plagued peasant village wants to hire some samurai to protect their town. The group is assembled, the town is fortified, all leading to the big climactic battle scene. But the texture of the story – the characters, the fine personal details, the cinematography and more…. it's just got everything! It's a perfectly rounded cinematic meal.
Words really fail me in capturing what makes the film so special, so I hope you'll just dive in and give it a view, if you haven't already. The fact that such a simple plot can clock in at 207 minutes and be engaging the whole way should tell you something.
Thanks for following… or tolerating my countdown. Next blog will return to my usual random outburst of subject matter and observations.
KILL!
This may be the most fun film in my whole countdown. Kill!, directed by Kihachi Okamoto and starring genre staple Tatsuya Nakadai, is a dark comedy set in the Edo period. It's sourced from the same story that served as the foundation for Kurosawa's "Sanjuro", but the two films only have a vague resemblance.
Kill!'s main characters are a samurai who is trying to be walk away from his position and live a normal life and a peasant who desperately wants to become a samurai. Though their lives are taking them in different directions they find a common cause when they get caught up in a clan's deadly vendetta… and hilarity ensues, though in a dry, understated way.
This is the film that finally made me understand Nakadai's status as a genre legend. He plays a very different character from most of his other roles, which are often brooding and arrogant. Here he's wonderfully likeable and easy going – almost to a fault. In the long run I think this may be the piece of Samurai cinema that I revisit the most.
YOJIMBO
I'm now in that territory of films that need little to no introduction. Another dark comedy, "Yojimbo" (Japanese for "bodyguard") is a Kurosawa masterpiece that introduces Toshiro Mifune's nameless samurai. This films plot and setting was pretty much swiped wholesale by Sergio Leone as "A Fistful of Dollars", launching that director's "man with no name" saga. But it's not too surprising as the film is a sort of homage by Kurosawa to the Western film genre.
Mifune's character from this film is just as iconic as Eastwood's in Leone's epic. The character went on to have three more film adventures, though only one more would be done by Kurosawa: "Sanjuro" (Japanese for thirty-something male).
And now…
THE SEVEN SAMURAI
Aw, c'mon, you knew it was coming. This is not only this the king of the genre, but it's one of my top five films of all time in all genres. Like "Yojimbo", the story drew the attention of Western film makers who adapted the story to make the successful "The Magnificent Seven", but I feel this original is vastly superior to the American work on nearly every level.
:thumb205439090:
It's a simple story: a bandit-plagued peasant village wants to hire some samurai to protect their town. The group is assembled, the town is fortified, all leading to the big climactic battle scene. But the texture of the story – the characters, the fine personal details, the cinematography and more…. it's just got everything! It's a perfectly rounded cinematic meal.
Words really fail me in capturing what makes the film so special, so I hope you'll just dive in and give it a view, if you haven't already. The fact that such a simple plot can clock in at 207 minutes and be engaging the whole way should tell you something.
Thanks for following… or tolerating my countdown. Next blog will return to my usual random outburst of subject matter and observations.
Simmering
While I haven’t been leaving much of a visible art foot print, these last few weeks, I haven’t been slacking off. First, I’m working on both building up my digital resources and trying to get my 3D-skills updated after about a three-year absence. There’s quite a few image ideas swimming in my head, I’m just building to the point where I can tackle them in my “new ways”.
Second, I’m taking an online natural illustration course out of Australia so that’s not only going to be taking some of my art time, but also (hopefully) giving me a refresher with my old skills in physical art media. So l
2020: The Year I Make Recontact
Well it’s been only about a month (give or take) since my last blog update so maybe I’m having success in retraining myself back to the DA habit. I’ve made really good progress on migrating my old arting materials to my new machine and getting up to speed with DAZ Studio 4.12. I may have only pumped out three finished pieces, but behind each one is a number of experiments and trials. With each one my “render legs” have regained a bit more strength. It feels kinda nice being back at the digital drawing board… if only to provide some distraction from our nation’s dumpster fire du jour.
I’m also r
From the shadows shuffles the unspeakable horror..
Well hey there! Long time no chat. I’m still alive and kickin’… I’ve just been kickin’ it elsewhere: in my reading nook, on my modeling bench, and in my kayak. So I’ve very much NOT been here… due to the fact I didn’t have much new to show anyone. But that may change in the coming months.
The biggest thing that’d been keeping me away from making art was my aging machine (as I work mostly digital, these days). The ole box just could keep up with the state of the tech. Like a (too) old car, it can still get me from point A to point B – most of the time – but not without great ag
We here I am again… after another loooooooong absence. For whatever reason I just haven’t felt driven to create much art this year, and something in me feels guilty about coming to DA purely as a spectator. All I can say is that I sure hope this lull passes because I’m much happier when I’m creating!
I’d be lying if I said political anxiety here in the U.S. wasn’t part of the problem and with the outcome of the last election I find myself driven to become even more politically engaged to preserve the progress made over the last couple of decades. But I’ll attempt to minimize bringing my political bag
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at least I know the Seven Samurai!
However, I've never got a grip at this very special culture, their motivation and motor and their consequences out of that. And I fear I never will.
Maybe I'll have to go their and look at it without any filter between them and myself.
However, I've never got a grip at this very special culture, their motivation and motor and their consequences out of that. And I fear I never will.
Maybe I'll have to go their and look at it without any filter between them and myself.