>best samurai movie
I love Kurosawa but Sword of Doom clears all of his jidaigeki imo (Ran excluded). Mifune has charisma but Nadakai is absolutely terrifying.
Calling it right now for the year 2024, Irony-NPCs will be pushing a contrarian meta about Kurosawa films having always been bad, Reddit, woke, Marvel-like [insert buzzword].
this board is D.E.A.D.
the only posts that get replies are the ones about current popular movies/tv shows and total mainstream bs
now, tell me that zoomers/millenials are knowledgeable, willing to learn people >what was his problem >what did I think of it
etc
D.E.A.D.
this board is D.E.A.D.
the only posts that get replies are the ones about current popular movies/tv shows and total mainstream bs
now, tell me that zoomers/millenials are knowledgeable, willing to learn people >what was his problem >what did I think of it
etc
D.E.A.D.
I only watched 7S, Sanjuro, Yojimbo. 7S was a good movie, rest two were okay, but felt like spaghetti western shlock.
I can't really shake the feeling that he is basically this
Looking forward to watching Dersu Uzala though.
woketards are working hard to delete him because Roshomon posits an opposite world view to Metoo/Trust All Women.
Not even that they're liars, just that alternate perceptions of the same event even exist.
In that recent Ridley Scott remake (the one with Kylo Ren fighting Jason Bourne) they literally change the title cards showing the differing view points to read:
"Kylo's Story"
"Bourne's Story"
"What actually happened" (the prostitute's story)
Roshomon has become another current year addition to the "Bad Media" list like 1984, Animal Farm, Harrison Bergeron etc.
They’re incredible, but I honestly doubt the average Cinemaphile poster appreciates them. He’s a true film lovers director and I’m not sure most people here actually even like movies.
One could mistake this for an egregious shitpost, but if you take a moment to savor it, subtle notes of wry humor present themselves to delight the discerning palate. I appreciate this.
I had to watch several kurosawa films in college film class and I have to say they are incredibly fricking boring. I understand their historical importance but I wouldn't call them entertaining. There was a funeral scene that went on for like 20 fricking minutes.
I like a few old films. Casablanca is one of my favorite movies. Japanese films tend to linger and go on forever.
>reeeee movies made no progress at all in 80 years
You're literally moronic.
And it's a widely known fact that japanese shows and movies are slow burners with a lot of lingering shots and scenes that go on for way too long. Whether it's anime or movies.
Here's a quote from another famous japanese director. >Ebert told Miyazaki that he was particularly drawn to the “gratuitous motion” in his films, by which he meant that several characters would often just sit where they are and reflect without necessarily advancing the action or storyline. “We have a word for that in Japanese,” Miyazaki explained. “It’s called ma. Emptiness. It’s there intentionally.”
drawn out scene in japanese movies are a thing and you're a moron if you haven't noticed it. It's a cultural thing and Kurosawa is known for it. It makes his films incredibly fricking boring.
I knew a "film buff" once in college that would watch Kurosawa films. She would spend half her time on the phone. Which is fine, because you won't be missing anything. You're all just a bunch of pretentious homosexuals
NTA but this is a completely different thing from a scene just being long and broadly structured. This is specifically referring to those moments in which the everydayness of life intrudes into the scene, it's not just for any long or slow scene. You ignoramus.
Btw the funeral scene in Ikiru is not typical of Kurosawa's work and it's okay to be filtered by it on the first watch. But the rest of Kurosawa's films are all highly entertaining, and watching Ikiru for a second time I found that funeral scene very entertaining, while still being a slow scene. Scenes can be both slow and entertaining, if you don't think so then you're literally moronic.
I've seen >The Hidden Fortress >High and Low >Kagemusha >Ran >Rashomon >Seven Samurai >Yojimbo
They were all fantastic. Kagemusha was my favorite but its a tough choice
I know "every frame a painting" is a phrase thats become cliche and meaningless but Kurosawa's stuff really feels like that, it feels like he put plentiful effort into every single shot to make it beautiful. Modern directors don't give a shit about cinematography, they feel like low budget plays by comparison
>they feel like low budget plays by comparison
Ironically the ability to set up a proper tableau is one of the playlike things I think Japanese directors most excel at. I assume it's some kind of kabuki tradition, same way their actors often tend towards big, pose-heavy performances that come off really stiff to some people.
Either way, I suspect the decline of live theater and set design is a big part of why modern blockbuster directors are so ass at setting up pictures.
Sometimes, when I want to pass out in front of the tv, I'll just put on Ran or A Brighter Summer Day.
For me, it's: >Red Beard >Seven Samurai >Ran (King Lear might be my favorite Shakespeare) >High and Low >Rashomon >Throne of Blood >Ikiru >Drunken Angel >Yojimbo (I'd probably have liked this more if I hadn't seen the Clint Eastwood one first) >Sanjuro >Stray Dog >Dreams >Dersu Uzala
I don't know how but I have yet to watch The Hidden Fortress. I also plan to watch Kagemusha, The Bad Sleep Well, I live in fear, and One Wonderful Sunday. Where can I find Kagemusha in good quality for free online? Criterion didn't add it to it's streaming service which I get at times
I agree, every scene in High and Low and Red Beard looked like they spent a lot of time on staging
>best samurai movie
I love Kurosawa but Sword of Doom clears all of his jidaigeki imo (Ran excluded). Mifune has charisma but Nadakai is absolutely terrifying.
Sword of Doom was too cruel, too cold of a movie to be #1
>>Ran (King Lear might be my favorite Shakespeare)
But taste in plays, but I don't see how a lover of King Lear could love Ran as an adaptation of it. I love Ran as a Kurosawa movie, but it's too different from Lear and if you compare the two, none of the changes are in Ran's favours. I was extremely disappointed with Ran on my first watch because it was basically Shakespeare with none of the genius. Throne of Blood, hell, even The Bad Sleep Well, were much closer to the spirit of their original plays.
I'd highly recommend Ikiru, it's one of my favorite movies. It's the kind of movie that sticks with you for a long time after you watch it. Throne of Blood is a great retelling of Macbeth as well.
Harakiri is an absolute masterpiece and I was genuinely shocked when I learned just how mediocre the director's other films are. It's like Kurosawa at his absolute peak made this movie but used a different name or something.
>like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese or Christopher Nolan
Lol frick off with the bait. Nolan is dogshit, Spielberg and Scorsese are hacks, and Kurosawa is a master.
Nah, it's like saying Shakespeare made the blockbusters of his day. The popular and action-oriented entertainment of the day are so diverse they cannot all be put into the same genre. In Kurosawa's day, his 'blockbusters' could just as easily slide into arthouse, but not so with today's blockbusters.
Yes? What kind of moronic question is this? He's one of the very few untouchable directors, where it becomes borderline impossible to find a serious flaw with him or any of his major works.
>Yojimbo
Bunch of asian people, very ugly, walking weirdly through a cheap looking town, motoric issues and all, somewhat of a mixture of childlike and geriatric.
Cackling, screaming, generally noisy.
Chubby samurai appears disturbing the hierarchy of power, making the ugly people try to kill each other even harder than before.
Gets caught at his ratlike game, almost beaten dead.
Crawls away, sleeps off his injuries and goes out for a final showdown.
Kills everyone, nearly gets shot (because he's moronic).
Walks away, awkardly moving his shoulders.
Everyone clapped. The movie.
no and they are just cut and paste plagiarized westerns. its like weebs getting excited because theres a cherry blossom tree in the image meme. is that a grorious nippon in his bathrobe and a sword folded gorillion times? sugoi oniichan.
This is bait, do not reply >b-but he said he was serious
Its bait moron.
I love Kurosawa, but he fell off with Kagemusha and Ran. Yes, they're amazing movies, yes, they have tons of brilliant visuals and drama and acting, but they're also quite flawed and lack the same holistic perfection as most of his earlier movies. Sometimes the camera feels stilted, artificial, the acting cast is (for the most part) infinitely lower than his classic cast, the stories are quite disappointing and not at all satisfying as virtually all of his earlier stories, and so forth. It just lacks the instinctive, energetic, tightly bound skill that I suppose he lost with age.
You can find commentaries from many of Kurosawa's older associates talk about this. Hell, even Coppola, someone with very basic taste, admitted that they didn't have the same charm as his black and white films. I'm just really tired of people endlessly praise them for, most of the time, no better reason than 'le every frame a painting'.
I agree that Kagemusha holds up pretty well, but the enemy clan's (forgive me if I get the terminology wrong) leader was a really uninteresting actor, I couldn't see him as the character, I could only see him as a generic Japanese movie actor. So the acting lineup, for one, isn't perfect. But the story also just didn't have the same intelligence as his earlier films. There's a bit of that old Kurosawa cleverness which grabs you, but it's still very meandering and the finale didn't come as the hefty dramatic punch Kurosawa wanted it to have, it just kind of happened. So there's also some flaws in how Kurosawa's directorial style, almost becoming a relic, isn't entirely suited to the subject matter. And as beautifully colourful the battle scenes were, they also looked really fake. So there are plenty of things to criticise Kagemusha for, in comparison with his earlier masterpieces.
>enemy leader
you mean nobunaga? There's definitely some historical context missing from your review. Makes it come across as nitpicking to some extent, to support your conclusion that color kurosawa is bad.
>but the enemy clan's (forgive me if I get the terminology wrong) leader was a really uninteresting actor, I couldn't see him as the character, I could only see him as a generic Japanese movie actor
Which one? Oda Nobunaga was one of the best things in the film. The bit where he sings is kino. The guy playing Ieyasu wasn't particularly memorable though.
I didn't know anything about the historical character, but yes that's him. I understand the intention with his singing, it COULD have been kino, but he lacks all pathos and interest to make it so. He was boring and one-dimensional.
even if people prefer his younger work, his later work conveys more complex emotions and themes. it's rare that we get to see great artists keep their talent so late in life
I don't know, I think the characters in High and Low or The Bad Sleep Well are much more interesting and complex, since the characters in Kurosawa's later films feel built up more by his desire to moralise and impart a message than to appear as real people struggling with real emotions.
kagemusha wasn't trying to be a realistic battle movie. it was a fever dream
It's not the use of abstract colours and effects that I dislike, it's that I can clearly see there's a red lighting being turned on and off and it's on the border of ceasing to be a cool, abstract vision and becoming an obvious special effect.
as fairly important real-ish events in japanese history, kagemusha is much more forgivable for this than ran. The viewer is supposed to know who nobunaga is and what he's doing.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
But does that absolve it from the need to be evaluated according to the same aesthetic standards as every other movie?
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
i refer you to my previous post
his whole ouevre can only be viewed as one. The latter are ensemble superfilms that rely on work done previously.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
But what does the overall idea being expressed throughout his work have to do with history qualifying the value of his work as art?
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
same principle. Pretending you have no obligation to know who Santa Claus is in a christmas movie is akin to judging late kurosawa like it's in a cage match with early kurosawa instead of reinforcing earlier themes.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
But I can still say whether the guy playing santa claus is doing a good or bad job at acting if I've never heard of santa claus. You can always tell bad acting. You're right that my appreciation of the movie would probably increase if I knew the historical context, but I don't think my estimation of the actor will.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
actually if santa is known to have exaggerated mannerisms or an otherwise intense and distinctive personality, it could very well influence your ability to tell good acting from bad. To say nothing of the language barrier.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
basically Kagemusha really happened and it's a legendary confrontation between samurai ideals and modernity
>but the enemy clan's (forgive me if I get the terminology wrong) leader was a really uninteresting actor, I couldn't see him as the character, I could only see him as a generic Japanese movie actor
Which one? Oda Nobunaga was one of the best things in the film. The bit where he sings is kino. The guy playing Ieyasu wasn't particularly memorable though.
The whole sequence of Shingen's wounding, word travelling around and the investigation are top kino. I admit the second half is just a gradually escalating series of bad events, but the performances and frankly the aesthetics carry it off.
even if people prefer his younger work, his later work conveys more complex emotions and themes. it's rare that we get to see great artists keep their talent so late in life
no and they are just cut and paste plagiarized westerns. its like weebs getting excited because theres a cherry blossom tree in the image meme. is that a grorious nippon in his bathrobe and a sword folded gorillion times? sugoi oniichan.
>they are just cut and paste plagiarized westerns
This is such a meme. If you know anything about cinema, hell, if you have eyes, you can see how distinct Kurosawa's filmmaking style is and that he has a lot of influences much more important than Westerns. Instead of saying Westerns, just say it for what it is, John Ford's films, but that's not the dominating influence people make it out to be. And Kurosawa greatly improves on what he takes from Ford too.
yeah they are indeed good. he's up there with kubrick in that my favorite films seem to change with age. when i was younger i hated 7 samurai but loved dreams and kagemusha...now i understand the brilliance of 7 samurai and rewatch it all the time and see dreams as more of a meme. also i think it's safe to say that ran is his finest masterpiece
Just watched High and Low and it was absolutely fantastic, incredibly thoughtful and gripping. I hated Rashomon which in contrast I thought was extremely clumsy and hamfisted. Maybe I'm not appreciating the era in which it came out and how different it was
I was surprised by Rashomon because it had always been pitched to me as "showing how different people could see the same events differently"
But it occurs to me that most of the versions of the story are witting lies to protect the storyteller's pride rather than different perspectives.
I burst out laughing at the irony of the medium being an honest-to-god-medium and the ghost being a bold-faced liar.
But the ending is timelessly poignant no question.
i watched the movie where they keep doing flashbacks about some old stories the character keep telling, it was the most overrated crap i had ever seen, orientals can't into art
He's very very good, but my personal favorite samurai film is Kobayashi's Harakiri. I never see it discussed here and it's genuinely one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen, both in terms of visuals and storytelling.
>I never see it discussed here
Well you're the third guy to mention it in this exact thread, so I suggest you go talk to the other guys whose posts you didn't read.
Throne Of Blood is both the best samurai movie and best Shakespeare movie
>best Shakespeare movie
No it's not and you're a pseud who has never read a play outside of highschool.
And you're a pseud who "reads" plays because you never go outside
>best samurai movie
I love Kurosawa but Sword of Doom clears all of his jidaigeki imo (Ran excluded). Mifune has charisma but Nadakai is absolutely terrifying.
>jidaigeki
Speak english homosexual
That would be Chimes at Midnight frickface.
Calling it right now for the year 2024, Irony-NPCs will be pushing a contrarian meta about Kurosawa films having always been bad, Reddit, woke, Marvel-like [insert buzzword].
this board is D.E.A.D.
the only posts that get replies are the ones about current popular movies/tv shows and total mainstream bs
now, tell me that zoomers/millenials are knowledgeable, willing to learn people
>what was his problem
>what did I think of it
etc
D.E.A.D.
Schizoid boomer babble
observant oldgay complaint (fully justified)
What do you expect when 9/10 of the board is from india and 2/30 of the board is from mexico? See you tomorrow gramps.
And you'll watch every second of their videos.
I only watched 7S, Sanjuro, Yojimbo. 7S was a good movie, rest two were okay, but felt like spaghetti western shlock.
I can't really shake the feeling that he is basically this
Looking forward to watching Dersu Uzala though.
woketards are working hard to delete him because Roshomon posits an opposite world view to Metoo/Trust All Women.
Not even that they're liars, just that alternate perceptions of the same event even exist.
In that recent Ridley Scott remake (the one with Kylo Ren fighting Jason Bourne) they literally change the title cards showing the differing view points to read:
"Kylo's Story"
"Bourne's Story"
"What actually happened" (the prostitute's story)
Roshomon has become another current year addition to the "Bad Media" list like 1984, Animal Farm, Harrison Bergeron etc.
ask one of the 5000 copies of seven samurai
See also: the 4000 copies of Yojimbo
Yojimbo < The Warrior and the Sorceress
i just noticed she has 4 boobs
They’re incredible, but I honestly doubt the average Cinemaphile poster appreciates them. He’s a true film lovers director and I’m not sure most people here actually even like movies.
>unironically watching reddit tape
You realize this is just a shitposting board, right?
frick you
>I’m not sure most people here actually even like movies.
This needs to be the Cinemaphile banner for Cinemaphile.
anon the average autistic Cinemaphilener worships kurosawa, he's brought up constantly on Cinemaphile and /jp/
He tried to make high-brow entertainment. IIRC this Cowie book is normieslop, good for intro.
good? yes but mostly because he ripped off most american filmmakers, writers, and novelists.
One could mistake this for an egregious shitpost, but if you take a moment to savor it, subtle notes of wry humor present themselves to delight the discerning palate. I appreciate this.
Yes, and anyone who says otherwise is objectively wrong, and a contrarian for contrarianisms sake.
Yes
Honestly go watch them
I’m tempted to watch one myself tonight just because of this thread
I had to watch several kurosawa films in college film class and I have to say they are incredibly fricking boring. I understand their historical importance but I wouldn't call them entertaining. There was a funeral scene that went on for like 20 fricking minutes.
I like a few old films. Casablanca is one of my favorite movies. Japanese films tend to linger and go on forever.
Shut the frick up
god i hate zoomers so much
>reeeee movies made no progress at all in 80 years
You're literally moronic.
And it's a widely known fact that japanese shows and movies are slow burners with a lot of lingering shots and scenes that go on for way too long. Whether it's anime or movies.
>t. zoomer cuck
>t.
Correct, and that makes me better than you.
Wall of cope
Here's a quote from another famous japanese director.
>Ebert told Miyazaki that he was particularly drawn to the “gratuitous motion” in his films, by which he meant that several characters would often just sit where they are and reflect without necessarily advancing the action or storyline. “We have a word for that in Japanese,” Miyazaki explained. “It’s called ma. Emptiness. It’s there intentionally.”
drawn out scene in japanese movies are a thing and you're a moron if you haven't noticed it. It's a cultural thing and Kurosawa is known for it. It makes his films incredibly fricking boring.
I knew a "film buff" once in college that would watch Kurosawa films. She would spend half her time on the phone. Which is fine, because you won't be missing anything. You're all just a bunch of pretentious homosexuals
NTA but this is a completely different thing from a scene just being long and broadly structured. This is specifically referring to those moments in which the everydayness of life intrudes into the scene, it's not just for any long or slow scene. You ignoramus.
Btw the funeral scene in Ikiru is not typical of Kurosawa's work and it's okay to be filtered by it on the first watch. But the rest of Kurosawa's films are all highly entertaining, and watching Ikiru for a second time I found that funeral scene very entertaining, while still being a slow scene. Scenes can be both slow and entertaining, if you don't think so then you're literally moronic.
"I had to watch this film for a class and..." is a way to start a sentence that guarantees whatever follows will be absolutely insufferable.
I've seen
>The Hidden Fortress
>High and Low
>Kagemusha
>Ran
>Rashomon
>Seven Samurai
>Yojimbo
They were all fantastic. Kagemusha was my favorite but its a tough choice
I love that Kagemusha shot with all the soldiers walking in front of the sunset. Then the soldiers that were sitting down stand up and cover it. Kino.
I know "every frame a painting" is a phrase thats become cliche and meaningless but Kurosawa's stuff really feels like that, it feels like he put plentiful effort into every single shot to make it beautiful. Modern directors don't give a shit about cinematography, they feel like low budget plays by comparison
>they feel like low budget plays by comparison
Ironically the ability to set up a proper tableau is one of the playlike things I think Japanese directors most excel at. I assume it's some kind of kabuki tradition, same way their actors often tend towards big, pose-heavy performances that come off really stiff to some people.
Either way, I suspect the decline of live theater and set design is a big part of why modern blockbuster directors are so ass at setting up pictures.
Sometimes, when I want to pass out in front of the tv, I'll just put on Ran or A Brighter Summer Day.
For me, it's:
>Red Beard
>Seven Samurai
>Ran (King Lear might be my favorite Shakespeare)
>High and Low
>Rashomon
>Throne of Blood
>Ikiru
>Drunken Angel
>Yojimbo (I'd probably have liked this more if I hadn't seen the Clint Eastwood one first)
>Sanjuro
>Stray Dog
>Dreams
>Dersu Uzala
I don't know how but I have yet to watch The Hidden Fortress. I also plan to watch Kagemusha, The Bad Sleep Well, I live in fear, and One Wonderful Sunday. Where can I find Kagemusha in good quality for free online? Criterion didn't add it to it's streaming service which I get at times
I agree, every scene in High and Low and Red Beard looked like they spent a lot of time on staging
Sword of Doom was too cruel, too cold of a movie to be #1
>>Ran (King Lear might be my favorite Shakespeare)
But taste in plays, but I don't see how a lover of King Lear could love Ran as an adaptation of it. I love Ran as a Kurosawa movie, but it's too different from Lear and if you compare the two, none of the changes are in Ran's favours. I was extremely disappointed with Ran on my first watch because it was basically Shakespeare with none of the genius. Throne of Blood, hell, even The Bad Sleep Well, were much closer to the spirit of their original plays.
I'd highly recommend Ikiru, it's one of my favorite movies. It's the kind of movie that sticks with you for a long time after you watch it. Throne of Blood is a great retelling of Macbeth as well.
This thread is making me watch Throne of Blood right now, I'll do Ikiru next. Is Sanjuro as good as Yojimbo?
Dersu Uzala, Seven Samurai and Ikiru stuck with me the most. I liked Dersu Uzala the most.
Rashomon was also rather novel.
Yes. Watch High and Low NOW.
Maybe
They are the best. Try Ran.
Yes, they're awesome. Most modern viewers probably just think of his samurai movies, but High and Low, Stray Dog, Ikiru, etc. are all great.
Are any of them streamed anywhere? I don't want to rent it from Amazon.
Bunch of them on Max.
I think High and Low may be the best b&w cinematography of all time. That or I am Cuba.
I prefer his films set in modern times, but his samurai ones are also great. Kobayashi is a bit more mature in some aspects though
I've only watched Throne of Blood, Yojimbo and about half of 7 Samurai. Throne of Blood is my favorite, he's pretty dope.
Im glad Kurosawa is getting some appreciation here, I love his movies but I can never discuss them because this board only talks about new shit.
Also, not Kurosawa but I'd recommend absolutely everyone watch Harakiri, easily one of the best movies i've ever seen
Harakiri is an absolute masterpiece and I was genuinely shocked when I learned just how mediocre the director's other films are. It's like Kurosawa at his absolute peak made this movie but used a different name or something.
>Im glad Kurosawa is getting some appreciation here
That is fricking pathetic considering how entry level he is as a director. The people here only watch capeshit, so they never discuss Kurosawa
He's the greatest and most consistent director to ever live. High and Low is perfection.
They're better than bad
Ikiru 1952 2160p UHD Blu-ray HEVC LPCM 2.0-MiXER
Jesus fricking Christ, Timmy.
Yeah he's my favourite director, just an extremely consistent kino machine
My favourite films are High and Low, Seven Samurai and Dersu Uzala
>ITT
Kurosawa isn't a fedora director
He's a maker of kino like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese or Christopher Nolan
>like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese
Case in point.
Well crafted b8, i r8 6/8
>like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese or Christopher Nolan
Lol frick off with the bait. Nolan is dogshit, Spielberg and Scorsese are hacks, and Kurosawa is a master.
I'm saying that he is like them, in the same genre, not that they're comparable in terms of quality
He made blockbusters
Nah, it's like saying Shakespeare made the blockbusters of his day. The popular and action-oriented entertainment of the day are so diverse they cannot all be put into the same genre. In Kurosawa's day, his 'blockbusters' could just as easily slide into arthouse, but not so with today's blockbusters.
Zach Snyder thread is two doors down bud.
i liked ran and kagemusha
Ran is one of the most beautiful films made.
Yeah
Yes.
Nearly all of them.
For the most part they really do live up to the hype that kinogays make them out to be.
Yes? What kind of moronic question is this? He's one of the very few untouchable directors, where it becomes borderline impossible to find a serious flaw with him or any of his major works.
>where it becomes borderline impossible to find a serious flaw with him or any of his major works
Boring.
Please explain how movies like Red Beard or Yojimbo are "boring". They're fast-paced and filled with action and comedy.
>Yojimbo
Bunch of asian people, very ugly, walking weirdly through a cheap looking town, motoric issues and all, somewhat of a mixture of childlike and geriatric.
Cackling, screaming, generally noisy.
Chubby samurai appears disturbing the hierarchy of power, making the ugly people try to kill each other even harder than before.
Gets caught at his ratlike game, almost beaten dead.
Crawls away, sleeps off his injuries and goes out for a final showdown.
Kills everyone, nearly gets shot (because he's moronic).
Walks away, awkardly moving his shoulders.
Everyone clapped. The movie.
Why are you trolling in one of the very few worthwhile threads on this board?
>trolling
This is bait, do not reply
>b-but he said he was serious
Its bait moron.
I love Kurosawa, but he fell off with Kagemusha and Ran. Yes, they're amazing movies, yes, they have tons of brilliant visuals and drama and acting, but they're also quite flawed and lack the same holistic perfection as most of his earlier movies. Sometimes the camera feels stilted, artificial, the acting cast is (for the most part) infinitely lower than his classic cast, the stories are quite disappointing and not at all satisfying as virtually all of his earlier stories, and so forth. It just lacks the instinctive, energetic, tightly bound skill that I suppose he lost with age.
You can find commentaries from many of Kurosawa's older associates talk about this. Hell, even Coppola, someone with very basic taste, admitted that they didn't have the same charm as his black and white films. I'm just really tired of people endlessly praise them for, most of the time, no better reason than 'le every frame a painting'.
I can see it with Ran, but Kagemusha was fricking perfect.
I agree that Kagemusha holds up pretty well, but the enemy clan's (forgive me if I get the terminology wrong) leader was a really uninteresting actor, I couldn't see him as the character, I could only see him as a generic Japanese movie actor. So the acting lineup, for one, isn't perfect. But the story also just didn't have the same intelligence as his earlier films. There's a bit of that old Kurosawa cleverness which grabs you, but it's still very meandering and the finale didn't come as the hefty dramatic punch Kurosawa wanted it to have, it just kind of happened. So there's also some flaws in how Kurosawa's directorial style, almost becoming a relic, isn't entirely suited to the subject matter. And as beautifully colourful the battle scenes were, they also looked really fake. So there are plenty of things to criticise Kagemusha for, in comparison with his earlier masterpieces.
>enemy leader
you mean nobunaga? There's definitely some historical context missing from your review. Makes it come across as nitpicking to some extent, to support your conclusion that color kurosawa is bad.
I didn't know anything about the historical character, but yes that's him. I understand the intention with his singing, it COULD have been kino, but he lacks all pathos and interest to make it so. He was boring and one-dimensional.
I don't know, I think the characters in High and Low or The Bad Sleep Well are much more interesting and complex, since the characters in Kurosawa's later films feel built up more by his desire to moralise and impart a message than to appear as real people struggling with real emotions.
It's not the use of abstract colours and effects that I dislike, it's that I can clearly see there's a red lighting being turned on and off and it's on the border of ceasing to be a cool, abstract vision and becoming an obvious special effect.
as fairly important real-ish events in japanese history, kagemusha is much more forgivable for this than ran. The viewer is supposed to know who nobunaga is and what he's doing.
But does that absolve it from the need to be evaluated according to the same aesthetic standards as every other movie?
i refer you to my previous post
But what does the overall idea being expressed throughout his work have to do with history qualifying the value of his work as art?
same principle. Pretending you have no obligation to know who Santa Claus is in a christmas movie is akin to judging late kurosawa like it's in a cage match with early kurosawa instead of reinforcing earlier themes.
But I can still say whether the guy playing santa claus is doing a good or bad job at acting if I've never heard of santa claus. You can always tell bad acting. You're right that my appreciation of the movie would probably increase if I knew the historical context, but I don't think my estimation of the actor will.
actually if santa is known to have exaggerated mannerisms or an otherwise intense and distinctive personality, it could very well influence your ability to tell good acting from bad. To say nothing of the language barrier.
basically Kagemusha really happened and it's a legendary confrontation between samurai ideals and modernity
>but the enemy clan's (forgive me if I get the terminology wrong) leader was a really uninteresting actor, I couldn't see him as the character, I could only see him as a generic Japanese movie actor
Which one? Oda Nobunaga was one of the best things in the film. The bit where he sings is kino. The guy playing Ieyasu wasn't particularly memorable though.
The whole sequence of Shingen's wounding, word travelling around and the investigation are top kino. I admit the second half is just a gradually escalating series of bad events, but the performances and frankly the aesthetics carry it off.
kagemusha wasn't trying to be a realistic battle movie. it was a fever dream
his whole ouevre can only be viewed as one. The latter are ensemble superfilms that rely on work done previously.
even if people prefer his younger work, his later work conveys more complex emotions and themes. it's rare that we get to see great artists keep their talent so late in life
You are right. Ran is just a build up to the last five minutes.
no and they are just cut and paste plagiarized westerns. its like weebs getting excited because theres a cherry blossom tree in the image meme. is that a grorious nippon in his bathrobe and a sword folded gorillion times? sugoi oniichan.
You're brown.
>it's not le original like The Matrix
ok troony
>they are just cut and paste plagiarized westerns
This is such a meme. If you know anything about cinema, hell, if you have eyes, you can see how distinct Kurosawa's filmmaking style is and that he has a lot of influences much more important than Westerns. Instead of saying Westerns, just say it for what it is, John Ford's films, but that's not the dominating influence people make it out to be. And Kurosawa greatly improves on what he takes from Ford too.
For me? It's Dersu Uzala
yeah they are indeed good. he's up there with kubrick in that my favorite films seem to change with age. when i was younger i hated 7 samurai but loved dreams and kagemusha...now i understand the brilliance of 7 samurai and rewatch it all the time and see dreams as more of a meme. also i think it's safe to say that ran is his finest masterpiece
Just watched High and Low and it was absolutely fantastic, incredibly thoughtful and gripping. I hated Rashomon which in contrast I thought was extremely clumsy and hamfisted. Maybe I'm not appreciating the era in which it came out and how different it was
Nope. They shouldn't even be called movies, more like theatre-likes.
Rashoman is incredibly poignant today.
I was surprised by Rashomon because it had always been pitched to me as "showing how different people could see the same events differently"
But it occurs to me that most of the versions of the story are witting lies to protect the storyteller's pride rather than different perspectives.
I burst out laughing at the irony of the medium being an honest-to-god-medium and the ghost being a bold-faced liar.
But the ending is timelessly poignant no question.
I liked Rashomon
For me Stray Dogs is actually pretty good. It holds up well against other noirs.
Top 3:
>Seven Samurai
>High and Low
>Stray Dogs
Check out Kurosawa's other early collaborations with Mifune. They're very good as well.
Are you fricking moronic?
i watched the movie where they keep doing flashbacks about some old stories the character keep telling, it was the most overrated crap i had ever seen, orientals can't into art
>DUDE LE FLASHBACK MOVIE
frick off soiboi
He's very very good, but my personal favorite samurai film is Kobayashi's Harakiri. I never see it discussed here and it's genuinely one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen, both in terms of visuals and storytelling.
>I never see it discussed here
Well you're the third guy to mention it in this exact thread, so I suggest you go talk to the other guys whose posts you didn't read.
>OHHH HERRO, I AMU GREATO SAMURAI, YOU ANDO ME WILLU FIGHTO WITHU SWORDSARU FORU HONORU
yeah, he's very kino
t. Black person
one neat trick i use to determine that is by watching his movie and then think about what i think of the movie.
I got tricked into watching Hidden Fortress, it was alright
Zatoichi>any of his movies
Meh...it's a meme that "muh art" kooks push to act like they know what the frick they are talking about.
It's just japs running around LARP'ing as superhero japs. Basic capeshit 101.
I prefer OG Gorzirra, that's where they truly shined. It's the exception, not the rule, of the old Atomic Monstervision.
I give it a 10