Samurai Movie Reviews

PS: Please don't buy the bootleg DVD's on ebay. Show your support and purchase the legitimate copy. Not only will you get this beautiful boxset, but the DVD video and audio quality will be much better.

Samurai Fiction isn't without its faults, but, being one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen in the last few years, I decided it's worthy of five stars (It's also vastly superior to some movies I have or would have given four stars...). A very recommended purchase, as well... I myself have watched SF three times, with no plans for stopping (it's a great pick-me-up).

Also check out the same director's 'Stereo Future' (no region 1 dvd atm), which is about as enjoyable. (ps. Nakano's other feature, AkaKage/Red Shadow is somewhat similar to SamuraiFiction, ninja in lieu of samurai, especially stylistically (though it's a bit more sad), is not such a good movie (maybe 2 or 3 stars) but also worth seeing if you liked the SFs.

When I found the dvd of "Samurai Fiction" at Blockbuster, I was wary. But, always hopeful, I rented it anyway. I watched the trailer first and was appalled. It described the movie as hilariously funny. The footage shown was not particularly hilarious. I steeled myself for another disappointment and clicked on play and found enchantment It is not hilarious, at least not to my western sensibility but it is light and humorous, accessible and at times humanly moving. The action and the swordplay is clean and uncluttered and still exciting.

It is a very self aware send up of a genre. But there is nothing smarmy or smirky about it nor is it overly reverential. In fact, it is perfect in tone and in all its performances. It has a certain amount of cleverness going for it, the black and white photography interspersed with flashes of red at intense moments, the musical score which uses rock and roll and even in one funny and sublime moment the music of Steven Foster. But what really sustains it and makes it all work is its warmth and real affection for the characters and the genre. It is a remarkable movie and a remarkable experience. At last, a samurai movie I can really enjoy.

Deeper, beneath the amusing facade of obviously recognizable storylines, there is a much more engaging message. Because both the main characters are female, seemingly predictable stories often come to surprising conclusions.

On more than one occasion this series has been deeply moving. Volumes 3 and 4 begin the slow exploration of Ran and her companion Meow. Like anything hinting at Zen, there is much beneath the surface here. Expect laughs but also expect to realize that 'nothing is permanent' and those laughs will fade to some surprising emotions every now and then as you watch this series.

One technical note: I enjoy the fact that you don't see blatant re-used footage (in the way of flashbacks or such tricks) in any of the eps of this series. And the fight scenes are fantastic. Ran is a powerful samurai and excellent with a sword. She's fun to watch and after your first few eps you won't take her lightly! Meow, too, but of course, she's the exuberant side-kick, so expect and enjoy comic fight scenes with her -- but not always.

Enjoy!

My biggest qualm is that 2 of the 4 films are not Anamorphic. Those of you who have widescreen tvs will know what I'm talking about. YOJIMBO and SANJURO, both 2.35:1, are not presented with an Anamorphic (or "enhanced for widescreen TVs") option.

HIDDEN FORTRESS is Anamorphic.

SEVEN SAMURAI is 1.33:1 standard format, so it will appear "square" anyway.

I was very disappointed to discover this after I bought the set. I understand that Criterion is now trying to release their titles in Anamorphic format. However, I wonder if they'll ever go back and re-release YOJIMBO and SANJURO this way?

By now you know abouth the movies that are included so let me make some technical reference to the DVDs.

In terms of picture quality, Seven Samurai has been restored to present the best presentation of the film to date. Yojimbo features a fine 2.35:1 non-anamorphic transfer of the film. Don't get me wrong, it is quite good, especially for a film of its age, but you won't be writing home about it. Sanjuro (my favorite of the bunch) is presented in a non-anamorphic 2.35:1 aspect ratio and starts off poor. The film looks worn for the first few minutes and shapes up after that. Overall, a very good transfer. Hidden Fortress has the best picture of the bunch, having been mastered from a pristine interpositive to a high definition transfer!

Sound on the disc is as follows: Seven Samurai features a restored mono track and is a improvement over the old video tape I used to watch! Yojimbo's sound isn't quite as good. There's a hiss throughout the Japanese 2.0 Mono track. To sum it up, it is fair. Sanjuro, happily, doesn't have the hiss present in the Yojimbo track. It is a pleasant Japanese 1.0 mono track. Hidden Fortress gives the viewer the choice of a 1.0 mono track or a 3.0 Dolby Digital track.

Extras? Seven Samurai features audio commentary by Japanese film historian Michael Jeck which offers insights into Kurosawa's work, the film and Japanese culture which combine to make a highly engaging commentary. Also included is a theatrical trailer. Yojimbo is pretty much a bare bones disc, including only the trailer and liner notes. Sanjuro has the same features as Yojimbo. Theatrical trailer and liner notes. Hidden Fortress includes a theatrical trailer and an eight minute interview with George Lucas who discusses Kurosawa's influence on him as a filmmaker.

In conclusion, these are excellent films with presentations that I'm sure are the best we will ever see for them. Don't hesitate to add these to your film library!

SEVEN SAMURAI tells the story of a village of desperate farmers who hire the samurai to defend them from a horde of roving bandits. Mifune as Kikuchiyo, the clownish and crazy misfit, and Ko Kimura as Katsushiro, the new samurai just learning his trade, experience the most change in the film. The 1988 commentary track by Michael Jeck is just wonderful; we learn a lot about Kurosawa, Mifune, the actors and techniques, and other films, as we listen to it.

THE HIDDEN FORTRESS tells the story of a princess and her protector as they move through enemy territory and encounter two bumbling thieves. An eight-minute featurette shows George Lucas talking about Kurosawa in general and this picture, in particular, as influencing Star Wars. YOJIMBO and SANJURO tell the story of a samurai who means well as everything around him seems to go wrong.

All four are heard in Japanese with optional English subtitles. The Criterion Collection treatment, as usual, results in crisp, clean prints with great soundtracks. All four films are accompanied by their trailers, and in the case of SANJURO, that includes tantalising bits of behind-the-scenes footage.

This set may not be worthwhile if you already own two or three of the Criterion versions, but if you have pre-Criterion prints you want to replace, or if you only have one, this would be very worthwhile for you. Wonderful prints of four great films by an amazing director.

This story is very violent. Assassinations are shown in a very graphic way, but the violence is used to emphasize the dichotomy between the ideological youth's dreams and actions.

The conflict is brought into focus when the main character, Kenshin meets a woman named Tomoe who makes him question the life that he has chosen.

The graphic violence makes this a title for a mature audience, but a mature teen may also appreciate this work. The main character comes from the anime / manga series Rurouni Kenshin that is set ten years after this story. I stongly recommend that you watch this work subtitled in Japanese, as the original voice acting is very fine.

Don't let the violence prevent you from seeing this excellent work.

Basically those are all things that i could get past but unfortunately, the way that the story is caried out is the most depressing. It is such an excellent story that should really effect u and be very emotional. The story falls short of capturing the viewer by not giving the full effect on the characters, having poor, underdone voice acting, and being just plain confusing. It seems that the series was able to make u feel closer to the characters and gives them a more personal aspect. This OVA fails to do that and doesnt quite grasp the sheer verocity of the tale.

On the other hand it is very interesting to finally discover the real meaning of the scar on kenshins left cheek and to find out who Tomoe was, her presence only hinted at in the series. The same things apply to the "Reflections" OVA, which seems to have the same talents as well as faults.

I recommend seeing it but i will not rave about it. I think that it would have been better if it was the same style as the series (flashbacks in the series clearly show that) but its worth it just the same.

As an aside, this movie will be quite lost on those raised on modern-day Hollywood films. Anyone going into it expecting a shallow, sword-swinging thrill ride will come away confused (and probably angry) at the "slow" pace, the three-hour runtime, the subtitles, the fact that it's in black and white, the fact that it's not particularly violent, the fact that they talk so much, etc. etc. ad nauseam. I'd figure this would go without saying, but there it is again, just in case: If your idea of a fantastic movie is "The Fast and the Furious", run away right now; what you're looking at now is the movie version of Kryptonite.

Assuming the audience has some depth perception, this becomes THE film to own, and should be a cornerstone in any great DVD collection. Fans will recognize the label of the famous Criterion Collection displayed proudly across the disc case, and under normal circumstances that's indicative of a DVD packed to the gills with extras for the real film fan. The only issue with this disc (and hence the 4-star rating) is that the DVD is VERY slight on the extras, essentially giving you the film and that's it.

Normally, this wouldn't be worth docking a point, given that this is both a very early DVD, and also given that this is the only place to get the genuine, 3+ hour Japanese version of the film. When it was picked up by RKO for it's first U.S. release decades ago, the film had been greatly reduced in length, and there have been various other cuts throughout the years. This version is easily the most complete, and that alone is quite substantial.

In all honesty, it's BECAUSE of the importance of the film that I feel like I got a little cheated with this disc. Were this a film of any lower calibur, I think I'd be fine, but this is SEVEN-FREAKING-SAMURAI we're talking about! If you're a Kurosawa fan, you really, really want to get as much as possible out of this film. As it stands, a real fan is forced to go to external sources on the film (not hard to find) to get all the juicy extra information that compliments it, which really isn't so bad, but the thought of what could have been had this film been released a year or two later on DVD makes me winsome.

What's crucial to point out, however, is that this shortcoming is really in no way the fault of Criterion, who have always had the utmost respect for the films they produce. It's much more a time factor: This is disc #2 in the collection (they're well beyond #200 by this point) and at the time, the special editions as we know them did not exist. Packing the entire film onto a single disc was a feat in and of itself, and taking into account where the technology was at the time, this really is the best the fans could have hoped for: Seven Samurai, uncut, looking and sounding as good as it was ever going to.

So, think of the 4-star rating as a time-adjusted thing. This movie is still required, but know what you're getting so there's no dissapointment.

And Kurosawa fans, take heart: Criterion's putting out a fantastic-looking version of "Ikiru", which is arguably the best Kurosawa film ever, and they're bringing all the fans' expecations to bear. It looks like it's going to be perfect.

In the meantime, Seven Samurai is a no-brainer for any film fan.

It's an honest-to-God classic, and one of the best films ever made.

The basic story (ripped off by the inferior U.S. remake, The Magnificent Seven) is pretty straightforward. Bandits attack a village and take its crops and some of its women. When the villagers learn that the bandits plan to return, the decide to hire itinerant samurai to defend it, with the only pay being room and board. They find a remarkable samurai as the leader, and he recruits the other six, including an expert swordsman who lives for his art (the actor who played this part had never handled a sword before this movie, and never did learn to ride a horse!), and a crude bumbler (played by star Toshiro Mifune) who is actually a farmer's son pretending to be a samurai. Incidentally, Mifune was originally considered for the part of the expert swordsman, a role which he played brilliantly in two other Kurosawa movies, Yojimbo - the basis for Clint Eastwood's hit A Fistful of Dollars, and Sanjuro. But this is no simple good versus evil story. Even though the villagers have hired the samurai, they don't trust these "heroes", and hide all their women. And it appears that in the past the villagers may have killed other samurai and hidden their armor - when the samurai discover this, they are not sure they can trust the villagers either. This ambiguity adds depth to the story. All this is gradually revealed as the remainder of the film shows the samurai training the villagers, attacking the bandits to cut down their numbers, and finally, after a few skirmishes, having the climactic battle scene in the driving rain and mud, which captures the chaos of battle as well as anything ever done in the movies. Unlike most movies where the battle scenes always seem to be staged, with the big explosion center screen and nothing much else going on, Kurosawa seems to embed you right in the action so you feel as if it is going on, not just in front of you, but all around you, off- screen as well as on. This is great movie-making, and the commentary explains how he achieved this effect. And at the end, the villagers go back to rice planting, and the samurai "heroes" stand to one side - no triumphal banquet and procession for them. Now that their job is finished, they are ignored.

As I mentioned, even though the film is long, it doesn't drag, because Kurosawa omits unneccessary exposition. One example, early on after one of the samurai is killed in battle, we have a burial scene. Mifune's character, in grief, grabs a battle flag made by the dead samurai, runs on top of one of the huts in the village and defiantly plants it on top of the roof. The camera then pans up to the hills beyond the village, where we see the bandits descending to attack the village. In a few seconds the mood changes from grief to exhilaration as the long awaited battle is joined.

On the other hand, Kurosawa also includes images which, although not strictly necessary to the main narrative line, will remain with you long after the movie is over. An example, at one point the samurai locate the bandit's hideout, and set fire to it to force the bandits out. As the samurai look into the hideout, they see a woman, captured by the bandits. In a silent scene, except for a lone flute playing plaintively on the soundtrack, this woman awakens, sees the fire off-screen, starts to cry out, then decides to remain silent, even though it means she will die a horrible death. The usual martial arts movie would never even consider having a scene like this, but this short, wordless scene speaks eloquently about this nameless woman's condition and deepens the story. It is little touches like this that linger.

Martial arts movie with incredible battle scenes, character study, social commentary, as with all great art, there are a lot of different ways you can view this movie. At the time he made it, Kurosawa said he wanted to revitalize the samurai sword movie, which he considered a dead form. He did more than that - he transformed it! A lot more could, and has, been said about this movie, but bottom line: Nobody who loves movies should miss this - it is essential!

Seven virutous and skilled men who defend the weak from naked aggression with no concern of personal possesions or of whether they live or die. They fight for the shear fact that it is the right thing to do, that it is the moral choice, that the just act is action itself, and that inaction will lead to the loss of innocent lives. Never has a greater film been made or a greater story been told.

Some of my favorite warrior movies are Gladiator, Braveheart, Tombstone, The Patriot, and others of this type, but the men in these movies fight for vengence, and the men in Seven Samurai don't, thats why I have to rank Seven Samurai as my absolute favorite, number 1 movie of all time.

It is about a boy named (no spoilers here) or Kenshin to some of us whose caretakers get killed. He gets saved by a master of the art of sword known as hiten-mitsurugi.

Its whole visual style is superb. And as everyone says "they mix real life into it that makes it kind of silly" well, they do but it doesnt ruin the movie. This tells you everything you should know before the rurouni kenshin tv series.It has got hell alot of kick @$$ action. Of course youd think its all action its not, there is a HUGE chunk thats all romance but all of this plus a great story make this numba 1 in my world!

P.S. this is my first review. Tell me if ya liked it!

From the moment Himura Shinta witnessed the killings of his companions to Himura Kenshin's longing gaze as he left the Chosu clan, there was not a single moment during this OVA that did not move me with awe, sadness, sympathy, fear, anger, hate, and any other emotion you might've felt.

In the true tradition of Japanese Kabuki tragedy, Rurouni Kenshin - Tsuiokuhen embodies everything that a romantic tale from the Meiji Era should have. From the extremely subtle yet meaningful love story of Kenshin and Tomoe, to the brief yet bloody sword battles of the Shinsen Gumi and Chosu factions, this OVA is filled with breathtaking attention to detail.

Animation is perhaps the least perfect element of this OVA. The reason for this is the use of live footage for the few water sequences. Somehow the image of real water set crashing against an animated beach doesn't go down well for me, Fortunately, this is very very few in numbers and doesn't affect the overall rating of the OVA. From the animation of the sword battles to the character designs of Tomoe and Kenshin, every single line and movements were drawn to draw out various emotions from the audience. That said, the use of muted colour perfectly convey the atmosphere most appropriate for this melancholic drama.

This OVA simply has one of the best soundtracks ever! Not just for anime, but in the film world in general. Taku Iwasaki's use of string and flute absolutely spot on for the mood needed to reinforce the images on screen. The quality is so good that i was often confused as to whether is was synth or orchestrated. In my opinion, this rates just as highly, if not better, with anime soundtracks of Macross Plus, Cowboy Bebop, Saishuu-Heiki Kanojo, and Rahxephon.

Perhaps the strongest, but also potentialy weakest, element of the OVA is the story. They managed to start and conclude, beautifully i might add, the love story of Kenshin and Tomoe, which, in hindsight, was perhaps the main theme of the OVA. There was never any danger of the story left unfinished. The background to which the love story is set, was the Meiji restoration of the mid-19th century. The producers also combined seamlessly the historical epic story with the love story, and still manage to include real life characters such as Katsura Kogoro, his teacher Kido Koin, and Shinsen Gumi members such as Okita without any awkwardness. In fact it only added to the epic feel that we are experiencing history in its making.

Some people confuse the story as simply that of how Kenshin got his scar, an element which was also well done. The scar was not simply character design nor a cosmetic convenience. A point well worth reminding to watchers of the TV series. Never could one imagine how to make such simple injuries to something more. Yet the makers of this OVA managed to make it into Kenshin's destiny, a reminder of his tragic past.

As i said before, the story have one potential weakness, that the background story of Meiji Restoration requires a somewhat significant understanding of 19th century Japanese history. Otherwise newcomers to the Kenshin saga might be lost as to the relationships of the various clans and characters and what their allegiances are to both the Tokugawa Shogun and Emperor Meiji. Nevertheless, this OVA is a prequel, and therefore the producers are assuming that you've seen the TV series. Taking this into account the only conclusion must be that the story element is, yet again, flawless.

The characters are the most important element to an anime, along with story, in my opinion. Unless, of course, it is intended to be short stories, as in the case of Full Metal Panic Fumoffu.

The character of Kenshin may not be the most sophisticated nor original character ever written, however, his character development is perfect when you combine it with that of Tomoe's. The way the characters interact with each other is simply understated, yet perfect. People may not like how Saito Hajime and Okita, as well as Hiko Seijuro are not as developed as can be. However, their characters are already given much more room to develop within the TV series.

With so many potential points that may have affected the review of this OVA, we must never forget one fact that this is a prequel. One must watch the TV series if they are to enjoy it to the maximum. Points such as lack of character development for the side characters and the confusing background story will only be felt by those that have never watched the TV series.

The value of this OVA lies in not only its collectable value, but also in the opportunity of watching a classic epic love tragedy. This is an anime truly worth the tag of a tragic love story. And it is eminently watchable. Anyway, you can always impress those anime-sceptics with this breathtaking OVA.

To me, the word flawless is a very hard word to give out easily, seeing as it encompasses a plane of existence that is inhabited by the very few. Rurouni Kenshin - Tsuiokuhen is as flawless as an anime can ever hope or aspire to be.