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- The Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai. The most classic example of the cross-cultural dialogue between samurai movies and westerns is the legacy Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai left on American cinema.
- A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo. Another Kurosawa classic, Yojimbo tells the epic story of a mysterious, nameless ronin in the waning years of the Edo period (19th century).
- Requiem for a Gringo and Harakiri. Harakiri takes place at the beginning of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate had just come to power and Japan was finally free of an extended period of civil war.
- Blindman and Adventures of Zatoichi. In Adventures of Zatoichi, a humble, blind masseur (not a ronin!) travels across Japan during the late Edo period, giving massages and acupuncture treatments in exchange for money to fund his gambling addiction.
Nov 4, 2021 · Kurosawa himself was inspired by the classic cowboy films of John Ford, while as recently as the 2000s, Japanese director Ken Watanabe was putting his own spin on Clint Eastwood’s revenge western Unforgiven (1992). Meanwhile, Seven Samurai’s basic plot has cropped up in everything from Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) to Pixar’s A Bug’s ...
- “The Magnificent Seven” (1960) and “Seven Samurai” (1954) Kurosawa’s landmark film, “Seven Samurai,” was highly influential on modern action cinema, but its most direct descendant was John Sturges’ “The Magnificent Seven,” starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and Eli Wallach.
- “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964) and “Yojimbo” (1961) Another Kurosawa remake, “Yojimbo” is about a mysterious, quiet and lone ronin who wanders into a small town and fights to end the warring between two rival gangs.
- “Blindman” (1971) and “Adventures of Zatoichi” (1964) Zatoichi is one of Japan’s longest running samurai characters — a blind warrior originally played by actor Shintaro Katsu — who appeared in a total of 26 films and a subsequent TV series.
- “Unforgiven” (1992) In 1992, Clint Eastwood deconstructed the genre that made him famous with “Unforgiven,” a Western about a gunslinger forced to face his murderous past.
Often the western includes an attempt by the protagonist to defeat the chaos of the west and impose order for the good of the weak or oppressed. Blazing Saddles would like a word with you. 32M subscribers in the movies community. The goal of /r/Movies is to provide an inclusive place for discussions and news about films with major….
- 1 A Fistful of Dollars
- 2 The Magnificent Seven
- 3 The Outrage
- 4 Requiem For A Gringo
- 5 Django
- 6 Blindman
- 7 Kill Bill
- 8 The Mandalorian
A Fistful of Dollars is perhaps the most famous instance of a Western that was inspired by a samurai movie, being a direct adaptation of the Akira Kurosawa movie Yojimbo. Director Sergio Leone expertly transposed the story of Yojimbo from its period Japanese setting to the Wild West. In doing so, the movie established the Man with No Name trope in ...
Kurosawa's shadow looms large over the history of cinema, as he introduced many enduring storytelling tropes to cinema. His movie Seven Samurai introduced one such plot element, becoming the first major instance of a movie where a group of warriors bands together for a common cause. The movie was a major success, becoming the highest-grossing Japan...
Rashomon is considered an essential watch for any film aficionado, as it is the most famous example of a movie driven by unreliable narrators. Once again, Kurosawa established an entire storytelling plot by exploring the power of unreliable narrators in a movie. The original movie follows the testimonies of an assorted bunch, including such charact...
Requiem for a Gringo is one of the most unusual movies on this list, packed with mystical elements that give it a very psychedelic tone. The Italian-Spanish spaghetti western is an adaptation of the movie Harakiri by Masaki Kobayashi, one of the most celebrated samurai movies of all time. It is a tense and thrilling tale of revenge that asks poigna...
The 1966 movie Django was another famous Western from the 20th Century, an Italian production that sought to capitalize on the success of A Fistful of Dollars. The movie also adapted Yojimbo to an extent, introducing a lone stranger who inserts himself between two warring factions. Djangowas considered one of the most violent films at the time of i...
Over the years, the samurai movie genre has developed a number of recurring hero characters who can be compared with the superheroes of modern-day cinema. Of these heroes, the blind swordsman Zatoichi is probably the most famous. Actor Shintaro Katsu starred in 26 films and 100 television episodes featuring the iconic character. Later, the 1971 Wes...
Lady Snowblood is one of the most unique Japanese period action movies ever, starring a female lead who trains as a deadly assassin to take revenge upon her parents’ killer. The premise wasn’t the only thing special about the movie. Lady Snowblood was full of elegant action sequences and had a compelling lead performance by Meiko Kaji. The strangel...
Star Wars fans are quite familiar with how Japanese cinematic sensibilities broadly influenced the Star Wars fictional universe, borrowing many things from narrative elements to the samurai values as seen in samurai movies. As the Star Warsfranchise continued to grow, stand-alone stories and spin-offs were able to explore this Japanese influence ev...
Westerns and Samurai Cinema (Jidaigeki or Chambara films) are both iconic film genres with iconic film heroes, and over the years, they have had an odd relat...
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Apr 3, 2024 · The Big Picture. The 1960s saw Hollywood turn to samurai movies for inspiration after running out of Western ideas, with Akira Kurosawa having a significant impact on the genre. Kurosawa's samurai ...
