Octubre 04, 2003

The Seven Samurai

Tonight I watched Akira Kurosawa's most excellent movie Shichinin no samurai, known in English as The Seven Samurai (remade as The Magnificent Seven). It's a really cool movie, and it's amazing how many different American movies clearly had scenes (or entire plots), ripped from it. There were some scenes that George Lucas obviously stole and put in Star Wars, and almost the entire plot of Thirteenth Warrior (down to the villager's last stand) appears to be taken from Seven Samurai (though there are also elements stolen from Beowulf).

I knew film makers in other countries ripped stuff from Hollywood movies (I have a Bollywood flick that is a complete and total rip of The Wedding Singer), but I didn't realize that American directors stole stuff from other countries. I guess it shouldn't have surprised me--I mean, how many Americans actually watch old foreign films?

Posted by kathryn at Octubre 4, 2003 11:17 PM | TrackBack
Comments

It seems like I read an intereview with Lucas somewhere with him acknowledging borrowing from that film.. but I could be wrong. Regardless it is a great movie. Bollywood movies are hilarious. Did you see Ghost World? Great movie - the girl in that loved her some Bollywood.

Posted by: andy patton at Octubre 4, 2003 11:43 PM

This American introduced me to Kurosawa films a couple of years ago. I recall three of them, although we may have watched more. The Seven Samurai (1954 (one of these days I'll have to watch The Magnificent Seven)), Ran (1985), which is based on Shakespeare's King Lear,- But, if you're interested in a Kurosawa/Star Wars connection, then watch his 1958 film, Kakushi Toride no San-Akunin, or "The Hidden Fortress."

Posted by: Kevin at Octubre 5, 2003 01:21 AM

The Thirteenth Wattior is based on a Michael Crichton book The Eaters of the Dead The Manuscript of Ibn Fadlan, Relating His Experiences with the Northmen in A.D. 922.

Crichton explains in the paperback edition that a friend of his bet him that he couldn't write an entertaining story based on the Beowulf theme/genre.

This is not to say at all that he (or the makers of the movie for that matter) didn't borrow, consciously or otherwise from Kurosawa San, more just a point of reference.

It's a great book btw.

Posted by: ColeSlaw at Octubre 5, 2003 09:06 AM

It may be that Crichton did set out to do a story in the Beowulf genre (the whole raiding at night in the hall is clearly borrowed from Beowulf), but as a movie, it's an awful lot like Seven Samurai. Since I haven't read the book, I don't know whether he told the story the way it ended up in the movie, but I don't know how the defending the town battle scenes could be so close without having borrowed from them--it's just too close to be accidental.

I might read the book sometime, though right now I've got too many things I'm already reading.

Posted by: kathryn at Octubre 5, 2003 09:59 PM

I've been doing some research on Kurosawa san out of interrest and it seems he did a bit of borrowing himself.

  • On the Seven Samurai: freely admitting to the influence of such American westerns as Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)

  • In all, Akira Kurosawa made thirty films. Several of these were adaptations of Western classics: Throne of Blood (1957), based on Macbeth; The Lower Depths (1957), based on Gorky; The Bad Sleep Well (1959), inspired by Hamlet; Ran (1985), based upon King Lear. Other films continued to explore feudal mythology: Yojimbo (1961); Sanjuro (1962); Kagemusha (1980). Many films of both types were embraced by his fans in the West as works of high art.

    • All info from here

    From everything I've heard and read I really need to start renting some Kurosawa films!

    Posted by: ColeSlaw at Octubre 26, 2003 02:29 PM
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