Hi,

I've seen Seven Samurai, and loved it.

I've seen Lone Wolf And Cub, and loved the series.

I have Hunter In The Dark, and, Tenchu, hopefully shipping today.

Of course there are many Samurai movies out there, and I'm not too familar with the genre, so could someone give some recommendations on other Samurai movies I may like?

I do love the swordplay, their code of honor, the drama,and, also, the arterial sprays

I do love Ninja's as well, so , if you have a good ninja movie to recommend, then tell me about it.

Thanks

I don't know if this is samurai or not, but I really loved Princess Mononoke.

Also, you might want to check this short out. It's about a "ninja", but not exactly match to your preference. http://www.pocketmovies.net/detail_272.html

My favorite is definitely NOT The Seven Samurai (overrated beyond imagination).

But the recent "The Twilight Samurai" by Yoji Yamada is excellent. And standard stuff like Ran and Rashomon (is that a samurai film, per se?). Sadly, I've missed a lot of classics, like 47 Ronin by Mizoguchi.

Care to elaborate?

...wow.

My favorite is Hidden Fortress.

Do a search on user name Grimfarrow and The Seven Samurai for my elaborations. If you also search Akira Kurosawa and Grimfarrow, you'll also see that I think Kurosawa is just plain overpraised.

Not that I dislike *all* of his films. I liked Ran and Rashomon. But I've been less-than-impressed by most of his other works - The Hidden Fortress included. IMO Criterion spends way too much energy on his works, while ignoring classics from Japanese directors who really deserve WAY more attention (Naruse, Mizoguchi, Ichikawa, Oshima, and Imamura). That is the biggest shame.

Shogun Assassin - yes its the two first Lone Wolf movies, but the combination of the two film's best gory moments, elevates the intensity level significantly.

I love Seven Samurai! My favorite so far, and I've seen many.

Grimmy or whatever your name is-

Have you seen Red Beard or High and Low or Stray Dog? That's great Kurosawa (but not samurai). How can you say he's overrated with so many unhearalded masterpices?

Anyway about the topic.

Best pure Samurai film I've seen: RAN
Best subversion of Samuai: Seven Samurai
Best arterial spray : Sanjuro (Holy Crap!!!)
Most bad-ass single Samurai duel: When the Rain Lifts (Is this on DVD? Great 1999 film from a Kurosawa script. The film builds to a single duel that lasts like 5 seconds where our hero takes out 4 bandits)
Best Samurai Anime: Ninja Scroll

I've never seen a Ninja film

So you're Grimfarrow, then?

Getting back on topic...

The Zatoichi series is downright addicting.

Good Burger

Oshima's recent film 'Gohatto' was tops.

Kurosawa is a god.

Grimmy is... well, my mamma told me if I didn't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all... also, I don't want to get banned.

I, for one, love Seven Samurai. Other favorites would be Ran, Yojimbo, alot of the Zatoichi films and the Kozure Okami (Lone Wolf and Cub) films. I agree that Ninja Scroll is probably the best anime samurai film (that I've seen at least).

Currently it's Zatoichi 5--On the Road. I've replayed that rice-ball picnic scene about 20 times .

"Unheralded"? As I recall, Ikiru, The Hidden Fortress, High & Low (replete with remake!), and many others are very much heralded. And I have to say that all of them range from being merely reasonable (High & Low), to oversentimental (Ikiru) to plainly overacted (The Hidden Fortress).

Kurosawa is always fond of "hugeness". Huge emotions (usually expressed by overacting and superheightened sense of dramatism), big productions, and most key scenes within his films are overdone to death (wind, rain, thunder - what does this add, except to make it all seem way too deliberately manipulative?). He only managed to tone himself done as he became older, which is why I find is later works more palatable. But it is easy to see why he's so lauded- he's accessible pop foreign director, kind of like Steven Spielburg of Japan. But since he predates Spielburg and most populist type of directors, he's considered a pioneer. Most Japanese people never thought much of him either, preferring instead films by Mizoguchi or Ozu.

Yup! I messed up my Grimfarrow account by my own stupidity. I think I need to ask the webmaster to help me fix it...

I have always loved Ran the most.

Look at me, I seem intelligent by being overly critical of a master.

lol, just giving you a hard time Grimmy, trying to blow off a little steam.

As long as we're resurecting this baby, I wanted to address this BS. This is the common criticism employed by people who want to deride Kurosawa, that he wasn't liked in Japan. This is NOT TRUE and is perpetuated by people who don't know what they're talking about. The truth in fact is that he was VERY popular in Japan. Another common BullS thing that people claim is that Kurosawa and Mifune stopped working together because of the Box Office failure of Red Beard. This is also patently false, Red Beard was a big hit and played for months. They stopped working for personal reasons that fortunately are not refleacted on the quality of their work evident on screen. Nothing will bring an end to this missconception as it continues to proliferate, but I tried

And from what I understand, Yojimbo was the highest grossing movie in Japan for many years.

Versus.

What?

It's got swordplay! Drama! Code of honour! Arterial Sprays!



Well, it definitely has the first and last ones. And ZOMBIES! With GUNS!

There's still a few I have yet to see but, The Seven Samurai gets my vote.

Also, not really a traditional Samurai movie, but Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai should be mentioned.