Tag: samurai
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Competition is Weakening in David Mamet’s Redbelt
Redbelt is writer/director David Mamet‘s ode to jiu-jitsu, of which he himself is reportedly a purple belt. Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a struggling black belt jiu-jitsu instructor, one of the few remaining practitioners of martial art in its authentic Japanese origins. The professional combat sport association MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) has tainted the martial…
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John Sturges honors Kurosawa honoring Ford in The Magnificent Seven
John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven is Hollywood’s answer to Akira Kurosawa’s hugely popular Seven Samurai. It suffers in comparison, especially if, like this blogger, one watches them in quick succession. The remake is quaint, chaste, and dated in ways the fairly frank original isn’t. To put it another way, Seven Samurai is a period piece…
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Seven Samurai protect others to save themselves in Akira Kurosawa’s Shichinin no samurai
Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is awesome and perfect, and this most recent viewing has affirmed its place among my all-time favorites. It’s a big movie, by which I mean it makes the best use of its generous running time with just the right amount of everything: romance, comedy, drama, suspense, and action. Nearly half the…