Kurosawa Films

[geo85]

It's been a while since I posted about seven samurai and I have seen more of his films now. Would anyone like to disscuss any of them? I have seen and own, Seven samurai, yojimbo, The hidden fortress, and throne of blood and I have seen rashomon. IMO some of the best movies of all time. Its expensive to them since its criterion but its worth it.

[Elcoholic]

I downloaded seven samurai once but it was such bad quality and to watch that for 3 hours isn't my thing.

Is there a remastered version or colored version arround?

[Zagatto]

I don't believe that I actually read from someone who wants a colourized version of this classic!!! The Criterion Collection has been remastered so that the images are vivid and crisp but they left the movie in its original black and white state.

If you want colour, you should check out Akira Kurosawa's Dreams. Talk about an orgy of colour.

The Seven Samurai remains my favourite Kurosawa movie though. I also delight in seeing how many different ways it has been remade. The most famous remake is The Magnificent Seven but there was also a cheesy sci-fi movie called Battle Beyond the Stars that was the same story. Then I watched A Bug's Life and realized that is another remake of the Seven Samurai as well. Of course the recent anime Samurai 7 was clearly inspired by the original.

Does anyone know of any other remakes of this movie?

(we could get into the whole Star Wars / Kurosawa movie discussion as well if you wanted to).

[geo85]

I was as horrified to see someone want a colorized version of a black and white masterpeice. Such blasfamy. Color adds nothing to movies, cept in casses like hero and flying daggers. I tend to perfer black and whites myself.

A fistfull of dollars is a remake of yojimbo.

I cant pick a fav because the are all so damn good, seven samurai was the first one I saw so I guess Im partial to it.

Lucas himself addmitted that the use of the peasants view point to tell hidden fortress was the main influence on star wars cause the movies are told from the droids view point. He said that all other similarities are coincidence but I dont fully believe him, though he did make a good point of how someone said there are only 32 plots that are remade over and over.

If anyone wants to buy any Kurosawa films buy the criterion dvds, its the only way to see them as they should be.

[KnlfE]

He said that all other similarities are coincidence but I dont fully believe him, though he did make a good point of how someone said there are only 32 plots that are remade over and over.

:confused: there are 32? I thought there were like 15 different plots?

[Ryujin]

I've seen all of those films except Throne of Blood. Some really great films there.

[geo85]

Thats what he said. I have the interview on the hidden fortress dvd.
You have to see throne of blood, damn good. Best shakespere adaptation ever.

[Cidien]

Wizard of Oz is better in color.

[geo85]

Wizard of oz was made to to be in b and w and color. Sides that movies blah. Haven't seen it since I was 10.

I just think movies made during the era of b and w were made when movies had more meaning and stronger messages than nowadays. This is especially in the case of Kurosawa's films.

[Zagatto]

Part of the strength of the Wizard of Oz is that it starts in B&W and switches to Colour when she reaches Oz. It was a brilliant use of a narrative tool. The only modern similarity that comes to mind is Galaxy Quest when the screen goes from a 4:3 aspect ratio to 16:9 when the captain sees outerspace for the first time.

As for Lucas swiping from Kurosawa I do believe that the ideas probably bubbled around in his head for a long time along with a host of other influences. The story is enough different from Hidden Fortress that I can believe there wasn't any intentional plagiarism but the similarities are strong enough that it most certainly had heavy influence on Lucas.

If we want to talk about plagiarism then I'm happy to point my finger at The Lion King... but that's not what this thread is about....

[Elcoholic]

Heh, so I guess asking for a dub is out of the question? :p

I'll have a look for those criterion dvd's. Is the sound good on those?

[Cyrus]

color or black and white don't make that big of a difference what matters is which of them hold more of an artistic flare such as shindlers list uses black and white and color. In a lot of old black and white films if they are crisp then they look better then most color ones because there is a artistic style to black and white that sticks out more so then the styles that can be used in color. but maybe thats just me. But yeah no movie ever got better from being colorized from being in black and white and now in color

[geo85]

Dubbing never helps a film, I think you should always see the subtitled version unless its anime. When you dubb a movie you lose something very inportant, the actors original performances, this above all especially in the case of mifune, you could never dubb him.

Throne of blood is very good, it has a very heavy mugen noh influence which adds a very dramtic layer.

I never said lucas plagerized, I merely stated I think fortress was more of an influence than he will admit.

Has anyone seen the samurai trilogy mifune did in the sixties, not any kurosawa films I mean the ones titled samurai? What about sword of doom?

[Vicious]

Has anyone seen the samurai trilogy mifune did in the sixties, not any kurosawa films I mean the ones titled samurai?

I actually just watched those in the last few weeks. I saw the first one just to check it out and I had to watch the other 2. I've never watched any old school samurai films before that. I quickly added Seven Samurai and Yojimbo to my que after that. Mifune is a pretty beast actor.

[marka]

If you want to see Mifune in a different kind of role, watch Kurosawa's "High and Low." That guy was just awesome ...