60/60 Review #8: Seven Samurai.

God, what the heck can I even say about this movie? Let's set it up first. While it's one of the longest on this list, it was in my Top 3 Most Anticipated. This was my third Kurosawa film, and the other two were damn good. So adding that and everything I'd heard, my Julianne Moore's (read: expectations. Listen to LAMBcast, people) were pretty freakin' high. In other words, if this movie were anything less than a masterpiece, I was going to be disappointed.

For those who don't know, the movie is about a village of peasants who hire seven samurai to rid them of a gang of bandits that have pillaged them to the point of having nothing left. The head of this samurai squad is a Ronin named Kanbe (Takashi Shimura). Along to help are a mix of other samurai including one who might not even be one, a silly man named Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune). Together, they plan on how best to take down the bandits and then, finally, attempt to accomplish their plans. From here on, you'll have to forgive me name-wise, both with characters and actors. Besides the two I just named (and a few of the villagers), it was tough for me to keep names straight, and I'm too lazy to look up on Wikipedia which was which.

This movie truly is one of the greatest films ever made. It has everything: a great cast of characters who are layered and who evolve, great acting, fantastic camera use, fitting music, exciting action, tense drama, fun comedy, secret romance, and a sprinkle of sadness when characters start to die. And I said it before with The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but there needs to be a reason for a movie to be this long (this one clocks in about 3.5 hours). GBU had no reason to be as long as it was. Seven Samurai, on the other hand, utilized every minute with purpose, whether to develop story or character.

The stealer of the show is, without question and without much surprise, Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune. At first he comes off as some insane man following them around. But as the movie continues, you start to realize what makes him tick, what drives him to do what he does, and you really grow attached to the guy, wondering what he's going to do next. The next is probably a tie between Kanbe and the quiet but super-skilled samurai, both showing wisdom and strength in their age.

I also mentioned both comedy and romance in the film. The comedy surprised me, honestly. I know Kurosawa has done comedy (and one of the three I've seen of his is one of them), but for some reason I wasn't expecting the jovial nature of a lot of the characters in this movie. It was really refreshing. And then there's the romance. There are two main "love" issues in the film. The first deals with one of the villagers named Rikichi who gets upset anytime someone brings up how he should have a woman or something like that, and it slowly builds to a reveal of what exactly happened. But the main story in this area is between Kanbe's protege and a peasant girl named Shino. They meet on accident at first, as Shino's father--Manzo--makes her pretend to be a boy so that the samurai won't rape her (as samurai are apparently known to do). They end up meeting in secret and building this relationship, all of which intertwines itself with the main story. I would say that the relationship could have been touched on a wee bit more, but the movie is already long enough.

In fact, I broke down GBU into three parts when I reviewed that one. This one, on the other hand, can be broken down into four, and they are so easily split into four sections that I wouldn't be surprised if Kurosawa planned it as such. The first hour focuses on finding the seven samurai and putting the team together, so to speak. This is a very entertaining portion of the movie. It was a lot of fun watching them try to sift through their choices and get everyone together.

The second hour is all the planning and preparation. This is where the movie slows down and starts building all the subplots and character development. This is also going to be the part of the film where a lot of people iffy about the long time span of the film might struggle the most. I certainly wouldn't say it's boring. There are a lot of good moments in this part, mostly thanks to Toshiro Mifune. But it's certainly the part of the movie with the least action.

The third hour is when all the fighting with the bandits begins. It isn't non-stop action, either. It's a very nice balance of action and then pulling back to not only have the characters strategize, but to give us further development with these characters and their respective subplots. Neither type of segment lasts too long, going back and forth pretty equally. However, where I personally started to feel the drag of the length of the movie was near the end of this hour. There is kind of a stretch between things happening near the end of this hour, but thankfully the fourth section of the movie sweeps in and saves the day.

The last 30 minutes are, as labeled even within the film, the final showdown. This is where everything comes to a head. All the subplots come together--major characters start dying, others start to show their true character (both good and bad), secret relationships come to light, and the final fight with the bandits occurs. I found it kind of a downer ending, despite the outcome of the battle (hey... it's been out for 56 years... I think I can safely allude to the ending without much repercussion). But at the same time, I found it interesting how it did exactly what people complained about with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--either not showing major deaths on screen or not making a huge deal of it when it happens. It has a "this is war--death happens and we need to move on... we can mourn later" attitude.

So overall, I don't really have a summation. This film is damn near perfect, and I can see why it's considered one of the greatest films ever made. I can now add myself to the ranks who agree with this. Sure it's long, but I found it worth sitting through. However, would I sit down on a rainy day and watch Seven Samurai just because I feel like it? Probably not, but that has more to do with the length than anything. It might not crack my Top 10 Favorite Films Of All Time, but it certainly cracks what I feel to be the Top 10 Best Films Of All Time and, if I were to split the categories, Top 10 Favorite Classics (and/or Essentials). That being said, if you've not seen this film, definitely check it out. It's long, but it's worth it.


Royale With Cheese

(P.S. That'll wrap up "Western" Month... whew, what a month! We'll be starting into "Foreign" Month next week with my transitional film, the modern Asian classic: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.)

Page-To-Film: Rashomon.

I know I just did DVDs Or Death!, but since it was relatively short, I figured I could hand out something of substance, as well. Not to mention the slightly ironic timing due to the movie coming out on DVD this week...

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So yesterday, I finally got around to seeing my first Akira Kurosawa film, but not before reading the two short stories it’s based on. I read both stories, “Rashomon” and “In a [Bamboo] Grove” (depending on the translation) in roughly 30 minutes before moving on to the film. I must say that this is one of the closest adaptations to a work of literature (or works, in this case) that I’ve ever seen.

Kurosawa’s Rashomon takes elements from both stories: The location, descriptions, and tonal tidbits from “Rashomon,” and the plot and characters from “In a Grove.” There are only two major differences in the movie: First, the fourth ‘narrative/flashback’ in the movie was added (most likely to add more time to the film), and the baby in the Rashomon at the end was also added, but it was moreso taking the place of an old woman that the Servant finds in the short story of “Rashomon.” Otherwise, everything was almost word-for-word, dialogue and descriptions taken nearly verbatim from the text (even from “Rashomon,” although the plot and characters are from “In a Grove”). The only thing they cut from “In a Grove,” as far as I’m aware, is the woman’s mother’s testimony, which wasn’t really necessary to begin with.

To start with the acting, the only thing I didn’t care for was the immensely over-acting of the actor who played the criminal, Tajomaru. The excessive bouncing and hysterical laughing was even more outlandish than The Monkey King from The Forbidden Kingdom. And the woman who played the wife was good, but her crying quickly got on my nerves (not the fact that she was crying, but the sound of it). But besides the incredible amount of over-the-top laughter and crying, the acting was excellent, even from the previously mentioned characters (when they weren’t doing those things). I just felt that the character of Tajomaru, when reading the story, was more reserved and frightening in a quiet kind of way. The movie version was the exact opposite. I also liked how Kurosawa turned two of the smallest roles in “In a Grove,” the Wood Cutter and the Priest, and made them into central characters. And Kurosawa even went into more detail on who actually took the knife from the chest of the man, which the short story didn’t.

Visually speaking, the movie had some wonderful camera work and shots. I watched an introduction to the movie by Robert Altman, who noted that Kurosawa was the first person to ever point a camera directly at the sun, which I found fascinating. The mood set by the rain was also brilliantly done (even though the rain was taken from the “Rashomon” story).

But one of my favorite moments, both visually and acted, was the Medium channeling the spirit of the man. For an old black and white movie, that scene really creeped me out. It was just so well done with the wind blowing her outfit all around with her hair and covering her face, and the look on the face of the old woman… it was just really unsettling. Not to mention the man’s echoing voice on top of that coming from her mouth. It creeped me out more than The Exorcist ever did (which wasn’t much).

The thing that sets the story and movie off from others that pull this multiple-perspective narrative is that all the movies to come after it tell the exact same story as truth from multiple perspectives. This one, on the other hand, tells the same story in multiple perspectives, but treats them as lies. So by the end of the movie, instead of having something revealed to you, you’re left to think about which one was actually the true occurrence (or as Robert Altman put it, all of them and none of them were true). It’s a story to think about, where not all of the answers are just given up to you. And with a layer underneath that, you have the social commentary of the lies and lives of men and what is needed to be done to survive (this part of the story mostly taken from the “Rashomon” short story).

So while some of the acting could have seemed over-the-top at times, even though it’s most likely a cultural thing, it’s really overshadowed by the basic concept and theme of the film. And on top of that, it really was, as I said, one of the best page-to-film adaptations I’ve ever seen. Now I need to check out Seven Samurai…

Royale With Cheese

Recent East Asian Cinema #7: Nobody Knows.

Welcome to the seventh (and final) of seven posts that will detail East Asian cinema, giving genre history leading up to a recent movie which will be reviewed! I hope you enjoy the series. For more information or previous entries, check the posts below this one.

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Genre: Drama.

History: Drama, next to comedy, goes so far back that it would be incredibly hard to detail the history of the genre in this space. So, instead, I will just give a brief history of the genre for Japanese culture. The 1950s really was the big time for the Japanese drama, because it was the debut decade for Akira Kurosawa, who made films like Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and Ran. Some of his films, such as Ran and Throne of Blood, were based on Shakespearian plays (King Lear and Macbeth, respectively). His films inspired many people, from Sergio Leone to George Lucas.

Three years after the 1985 release of Ran, a set of (completely unrelated) events would occur in Japan widely known as the “Affair of the Four Abandoned Children of Sugamo.” These events would later inspire a 2004 film entitled Nobody Knows, based on the same events, but toned down quite a bit. The movie was Japan’s entry for Best Foreign Film for the Academy Awards, and it won Best Actor Award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for fourteen-year-old Yûya Yagira, as well as two other awards (including Best Film) at two other film festivals. And it is the final film I will be discussing for this week of Recent East Asian Cinema.

Nobody Knows (2004).

Country of Origin: Japan.

Original Title: Dare mo shiranai.

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda.

Nobody Knows is about a single mother, Keiko (You), who leaves her four children—Akira (Yûya Yagira), 12 years old and the oldest of the group; Kyoko (Ayu Kitaura); Shigeru (Hiei Kimura); and Yuki (Momoko Shimizu)—alone in an apartment for over a year. She sneaks the younger three in via luggage, and the landlord only knows about Akira and Keiko. All of the children are also born from a different father each, and none of them are registered as ever being born, so none of them goes to school. Keiko has a job (and boyfriend) out of town, and she begins leaving for longer and longer periods of time before she eventually just stops coming home. So now the kids must fend for themselves as eventually they run out of money and therefore food, electricity, and water.

This movie is pretty hardcore, especially since it’s a true story. And what’s worse, I read up on the real story, and it really is a lot worse than it was portrayed in the movie (which is hard to believe). The movie is almost 2 and a half hours long, and feels it. You’re dragged along (especially in the first hour) with these poor children and how they slowly start running out of money and everything else. Akira has to start becoming friends with some store owners in order to get some free food, they have to get water and bathe at the water spout in the park, and just live by the sunlight.

It’s a really tough movie to watch, as you know everything is just going to get worse and worse until it ends in just a depressing manner. But in doing so, it’s a really powerful movie, showing everything these kids had to do to survive, as well as their changing moods and all the decisions they make. You know you were in for a rough time from the very beginning, when you see the mother and oldest son sneaking the other kids in via the luggage (like, they were hiding inside it).

The only negatives would be that the movie is really slow, and the ending (as well as the overall movie in general) is really depressing. And then it has an open ending with no real resolution (which is why I had to go research what really happened). I bet if I watched it again, I’d grow to appreciate the movie even more, and I already really appreciate what it did do in the first place. But I just remember staring at the timer on my DVD player wondering if the movie was ever going to end… though I didn’t want to turn it off, because I was engaged enough to want to know what happened to the kids. It was a bizarre feeling. I think this is one of those movies that everybody should see at least once, but it would be hard to give it a second viewing just because of the subject matter. So yeah… time to rate it.

I Am McLovin!