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Sunday, July 7, 2013

Samurai Media: One-word movie reviews

These are my favorite samurai movies. Since there are too many for me to write a review for each, I'll try to do a simple one-word review of each. If I had to choose one as a favorite, it would be Hara Kiri. It's slow-paced, but intense and scathing toward the samurai class. And it stars my favorite Japanese actor, Tatsuya Nakadai. The recent remake is also not too bad.
I'm also fond of "Kill!" which I recently purchased. Nakadai shows less intensity but more range with his role in "Kill!"

The following reviews will simply show a picture with the movie title followed by one word that best describes (for me) what I like about that movie.
These are movies I've seen (and all of them more than once). Some might call it sacrilege that I didn't include any of the 60s/70s Zatoichi films- but I've only seen a couple, and while they were good and fun (and I hope to see the rest), they weren't necessarily my favorites. I also hear that "Three Outlaw Samurai" and "Sword of the Beast" are also good, but I have yet to (purchase and) see them.

"Hara kiri"
Compelling.














"Seven Samurai"
Epitome.














"Samurai Rebellion"
Tragic.














"Hidden Fortress"
Classic.














"Sword of Doom"
Dark.














"Yojimbo" (AND "Sanjuro")
Entertaining.



"Ran"
Epic.













"Kill!"
Hilarious













"Zatoichi" (2003)
Action.














"13 Assassins"
Over-the-top.















"After the Rain"
Pleasant.













"Twilight Samurai"
Beautiful.


3 comments:

  1. Allison M.July 8, 2013 at 9:22 AM

    I'd call Zaitochi "offbeat". I liked it though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. EvilcartoonistJuly 8, 2013 at 9:55 AM

      Ah- good word, a better word. Then I could say "Action" for 13 Assassins.

      Delete
  2. SeanJuly 9, 2013 at 10:40 AM

    Great reviews. I'll have to check out the ones I haven't seen. Hara-Kiri is a good one that I happened on late. I seem to conflate Sanjuro and Yojimbo.

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