Dang. Another movie to add to my Netflix wish list.

As much as I love The Magnificent Seven, it pales next to the original. Never have more than 3 hours go by so quickly.

My litmus movie has always been The Quiet Man. Every woman that has not seen is expecting another Wayne western and are always shocked to find they loved it. If not it was usually a sign that I was dealing with a feminist that believed Wayne should have been shot for dragging Maureen O back to town.

You had guts to take a date to a foreign film since people seem so resistant to subtitles. And you probably know this, but the fact you didn't allow Karen's feelings toward the movie affect how you felt toward her showed you were smarter than most men your age.

I don't think that movie would be a hit with the Shiloh Cinema Club.
We need easier movies. "Seabiscuit," "Men of Honor" and "Five Pennies" were great successes with the crowd. The average age is about 70. I'm one of the youngsters.

Hi Robert,
The Seven Samurai is a wonderful film, but for a first dose of Kurosawa I'd probably use the Capra-esque One Wonderful Sunday or Yojimbo, which moves a little faster than the SS. Dreams is kinda cool too as an opener.

Then I'd move on to Ran or Rashoman

Yeah, I really love AK's films. There no one like him around today that I'm aware of and I never tire of watching them.

Take care, OK?

Robert,
You've made a new fan of me... I read this and then "How I married Karen." It is good that you are in the world.

I had mentioned last fall that our college freshman son wanted The Seven Samurai for a Christmas present. I've neglected to get back to you to tell you that he loves it. He doesn't know how anyone can be bored with it! :-)

Last August, having saved his earnings from his part-time job, he and a friend made plans to visit Japan. He has been teaching himself to read and write some Japanese. They are leaving next week and he is very excited.

B"H

Well, you have better taste than my friend Michael who used to insist on his dates sitting through Monty Python's "Parrot Sketch."

If she didn't laugh, then that was their last date.

To me, Kurosawa sits on the right hand of G-d. There is no one who can touch him.

That being said, not all of his films are great. "Ran" was pretty to look at and the cinematography was wonderful, but for me, it lacked that humanist and caring soul that marks Kurosawa's best films. It was a beautiful, but empty, spectacle.

Make a point of seeing "Sanjuro", the companion piece to "Yojimbo" (hard to imagine a better double bill, unless it's "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon"), "Hidden Fortress" and "Ikiru", which has an absolute tour-de-force of acting on the part of Takashi Shimura as a petty bureaucrat dying of cancer. It's hard to believe that it's the same man who plays the leader of the Seven Samurai.

Anyway, Robert, what particularly is it about the Seven Samurai that makes you love it so? I agree with you, mind. I'm just curious.

Also, I recommend pretty much anything by the late Itami Juzo, "Tampopo" in particular.

Ephraim:

Seven Samurai combines perfect action with amazing depth of character mixed with fine light comedy. It's a flawless movie in that every filmic element—script, cinematography, score and acting—works to make the whole organically coherent. The battle in the mud might be the greatest action sequence ever filmed.

I'm also partial to "Rashomon."

Except for the stunning battle sequences, Ran does not work. In fact, it gets kind of tedious.

Sure "The Seven Samourai" is a masterpiece, but only a masterpeice in the genre of drama and action movie. Rashomon, I believe is a much more cinematically refined and great piece of story telling in non-linear format. This Kurosawa film is even more important in innovative technical aspect of traveling and long take shots. When I heard Kurosawa himself explaining how he first thought of filming with the camera pointing toward the sky showing the tips of the forest trees as the sun's rays shimmer through them as the camera traveling occured. The first of its kind in modern cinema. If this scene does not make the viewer "in the forest" I do not know what will do.

Sammish:

I believe that Seven Samurai transcends the action movie. For instance, the revelations about the plundering and murdering of on-the-run samurai by the peasants is an arena that normal action films would not include.

I'm a big fan of "Rashomon"and "Ikiru" and I never play the game of this film is greater than this other film. Movies are deeply subjective and should never be reduced to discussions of camera movements, etc.

That's why I consider most movie critics to be sadly deluded when they drone on and on about the formal elements of a film.

Actually, I laughed at the battle sequences in "Ran". All those rivers and rivers of fire-engine red blood. Perhaps Kurosawa was trying to make some sort of statement, but I just found it laughable. I don't think Kurosawa ever really learned how to use color in a natural way. His B&W films are much better. Somehow, it seems to me that he sot a bit self-indulgent towards the end.

But even his films which I don't like that much always have superb elements in them. I didn't care for "Dreams" that much as a whole, but the story of the fox wedding and the soldiers who don't know they're dead are masterpieces within a bunch of other stuff I don't even remember.