Seven Samurai

[Natzilla]

Does anyone else love this classic as much as I do?

If you've seen the American remake (The Magnificent Seven) what sorts of parallels are drawn between the Japanese swordsman and the American gunslinger? Just out of curiosity. ;)

[AFlickering]

Amazing amazing amazing film, one of my two favourite Kurosawas (the other being Ran). Haven't seen TMS though.

[Spunkie]

I watched Magnificent Seven quite a while ago. I don't want to be too harsh, but somehow it falls far behind the original. The usual hollywoodization is there, what is shown in Seven Samurai is relentlessly passed into dialogue. The cast and straightforward direction are the only positives in my opinion. I can't recall every detail, main idea is american wild bunch helping the villagers get rid of the bad guys with their endless bravery. Nothing in the line of Kurosawa's humanitarian approach.

Yojimbo and Sanjuro adapted as the first two installments of Dollar Trilogy are better as expected.

[Natzilla]

Thanks, Spunkie. I do want to see Magnificent Seven, eventually but I wasn't sure how direct of a remake it was. I'm mostly curious because I wrote a film studies research paper comparing the similarities (and cultural interpretations of those similarities) between Seven Samurai and Sholay (a 1975 Bollywood film, which in my research I found was an indirect remake/copy of the American Magnificent Seven).

What's the Dollar Trilogy? I'm not familiar with that.

[Spunkie]

No Problem. Actually for academic purposes M.S. can give you enough material for a paper. Many parallels can be easily drawn, Sevens are pretty close in a sketchy manner.

Actually you should know dollar trilogy pretty well by seperate names ; a fistful of dollars, for a few dollars more and good, bad and the ugly :)

[MmzHrrdb]

Top 5 material. My favorite samurai movie, though Harakiri is arguably just as good.

[rockerpro]

I concur, Seven Samurai is a beast of a movie, easily one of my top favorites. But I haven't seen the Magnificent Seven.

What do you think of Yojimbo though?

[MmzHrrdb]

What do you think of Yojimbo though?

As far as sheer entertainment goes, Yojimbo is probably the most fun I've ever had watching a samurai flick.

[KGB]

'Yojimbo' was the first (and nearly only, sadly) Kurosawa film I saw. While it is a bit slow at the start, by the ending it hooks you to a point where you don't want it to end. Top 20 material for sure.