04-27-2020, 10:22 AM
(04-26-2020, 10:57 AM)Drunk Monk Wrote: It's been decades since I've seen these and your jidaigeki binge here has been making me think I should revisit them. I remember the first being the most interesting as well. I haven't seen it since I read Takuan, who's Unfettered Mind remains one of my top reads as both a martial and Buddhist text. I remember getting super annoyed by the love interest, was she Otsu?, and loving that rice paddy sword fight.Yes, her name was Otsu, and she seemed more a symbol than a character. I wonder how she was presented in the novel, if even in it? I liked the actress and found her very beautiful. But wow, she had nothing to work with, so one-dimensionally subservient...
A fun supplement to this is Sasaki Kojiro (1967) where Nakadai plays Musashi.
I've seen Seven Samurai dozens of times. I owned the VHS and played it to death. It remains one of my favorite films of all.
I first saw Seven Samurai in my 20s and recognized it as a great movie. I saw it again sometime in the last decade and thought, "Wow, this is a whole lot better than I remembered!" Not certain what superlative that calls for.