Interesting analysis. You're correct in saying that I didn't have an emotionally deprived childhood. It was by no means perfect, but I have no regrets. Maybe that's the root of my inability to relate. I think we could make the generalization that Japanese culture is emotionally repressed to a certain degree. Formality tends to triumph over personal expression. That is a difficult concept for me. I understand the intentions, but logicaly it's hard for me to make sense of it. I have admittedly never been to Japan, so I will defer to those who have if what I write is completely off base.

It's funny that you mention Hong Kong cinema though. I love Hong Kong action cinema. The pure exuberance (and often times lunacy) of Hong Kong films is incredibly infectious. While just as commercially driven (if not more so) as Hollywood productions, there is a joy and spontaneity in the filmmaking that is unmatched anywhere in the world in my opinion. But I suppose that's a discussion for another topic.

Off topic but on topic on the art of HK action: HK action is an art. America had a style and way of action...but those HK action flicks were just insane. Even the crappy HK action films had something very very interesting and cool in terms of action. Not even we Americans can say that about our crappy action films when they were crappy that is.

It is commonly pointed out (to the point of it being a cliche) that Hidden Fortress and AK's films in general inspired George Lucas to make Star Wars. But I think it's worth pointing out that Lucas has said the thing that resonated and inspired him most about AK was not the plot or style but rather the "alien-ness" of the films. So while there is a loose similarity in structure between the first Star Wars and Hidden Fortress and some techniques are borrowed from from Seven Samurai and Throne of Blood, the real "inspiration" Lucas felt was that the films AK made felt really foriegn, really alien to him, yet they made sense on their own terms, establishing rules and remaining consistent in an integral way. So while the cermony, behavior, codes of chivalry, etc (what I'll call rules) were incomprehensible (to Lucas) no explanation was really neccessary so long as the film (it's characters, the script) adhered to the rules. Lucas took this one step further, into the realm of science fiction/fantasy. The "hook" for Star Wars was that it didn't stop to explain anything. This is often taken for granted today, but sci-fi films of the past were often talky affairs with long winded exposition. Lucas realized from watching AK that you didn't need to explain the rules of the universe you just had to follow them. He saw that as long as the characters understand the rules, follow the rules, care about the rules the audience will too, even if they don't fully understand what the rules mean.

That being said, if you look at all of AK's work, many of them are talky, especially High and Low (and also Red Beard, The Bad Sleep Well, Drunken Angel, even Kagamusha). I think Lucas mostly found his inspiration from SS, Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo, Roshamon, and little else.

I guess you also have to realize that the Japanese and Japanese cinema are much less foriegn to us today then they were in the mid-60's. The only place outside of NY where AK's films played in their first run was Hawaii, where John Millius saw them and told all his friends. I think if Lucas were 20 years old and watching Hidden Fortress for the first time today he wouldn't find it so alien, and none of us do either.

Would you agree with me that their seeming less foreign to you is attributable to the prevalence of anime and other Asian pop cultural influences? Heck, even "Power Rangers," which is based on and uses footage from Japanese sentai shows, owes quite a debt to SEVEN SAMURAI.

BTW, catch more Kurosawa today on Turner Classic Movies if you can. They're running his films all day in commemoration of the master's centennial today. He was born March 23, 1910. I've chosen today to finish reading Kurosawa's memoir, Something Like an Autobiography, a great book about filmmaking if you can get it.

Nice Ash...I'm reading the book today too. I've read it before, but restarted it beginning today. Going to have people over tonight for a screening of Sanjuro on Blu-ray.

I really need to get that Kurosawa memoir. I love his films.

Any self-respecting Kurosawa fan should have this book in their library as well:



HUGE background and detail on every film. Worth the price of admission and then some.

Yeah that, and the internet, and the fact that the world is just smaller today. More TV chanels, videogames, and the internet making access to everything much more easy, better film distribution, popularization of foriegn genre filmmakers by American auteurs like Scorsese, Lucas, Copola, DePalma, Tarantino.

Another great book, covering the whole spectrum of Japanese cinema , is Japanese Cinema by Stuart Galbraith, published by Taschen.

Yeah, that Richie book is awesome. Another one that I have, but haven't read yet is this:

The same Stuart Galbraith that reviews here at DVDTalk?

One and the same.