Samurai Movies - please recommend your fav
 

These are my favourite genre of Japanese movies. Favs are Seven Samurai and Hidden Fortress (story was used by George Lucas as a tempalte in Star Wars).

I have seen a few of the recent movies like When the Last Sword is Drawn, Hidden Blade but I was disappointed by the lack of action. A lot of Japanese Samurai movies feature a lot of sitting around and talking.

Can anyone recommend a good action Samurai movie I could watch?

Many thanks.

Lone Wolf and Cub - lots of blood
Samurai Fiction - lots of comedy
Zatoichi - try the recent Takeshi Kitano version
and if you're not bothered about Samurai but just want lots of sword action try Versus.

Both of the Azumi movies feature a lot of action, have some samurai, a few ninjas, as well as assassins.

You already know about Akira Kurosawa...and Seven Samurai is definately my favorite of his.

Ran & Kagemusha. I love the long drawn out drama, culture and intrigue of these two. Can anyone recommend anything similar.

The Zatochi movies are really good movies!:)

Are zatoichi movies new releases or old ones. I do prefer the older movies.

There old ones

Great. Gonna try and track it down. Cheers for the info. Where u from? Can you recommend any others.

Im from the united states! and over here the zatochi movies sometimes come on saturday mornings on the IFC channel

Dont get that luxury here in the Uk. Tv here is pretty rubbish compared with some countries. Thank god for sky and virgin. But even these repeat films on a weekly basis. programs here revolve around families and kids, cooking and gardening. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

yeah the zatoichi films are awesome! definately my faves!! i like the festival of fire best!! just cant beat the gay/crossdressing dude and the naked tattooed men fighting at the baths! :P rah!

Anything by Akira Kurosawa, he is arguably the best Japanese director in History. You can watch a bunch of his films online, I've got a link on my blog about some of his movies, but honestly it's almost impossible to pick one, they are all just so good.

I have found a like'n to "Shinobi-Heart Under Blade" and I know it's not totally samuri, but I like the movie "The Promise" by Chen Kaige

i agree with u tenchu-san...Samurai X - Trust and Betrayal is one of the best anime OAV on samurais...it's mature, serious, moving, great artwork and semi-historical as well...

Last night I was watching a movie called Zatoichi I really liked it. But it was in Spanish....

I definitely love watching japanese movies but i cant seem to download an english version of grave of the fireflies. i have found this subtitle site and i hope this one helps if you cant undrstand japanese either.:)

Iron Monkeyyyyyyyyy
Okay that's ninja
WATCH IT ANYWAY

My favorite Samurai movies are the Zatoichi and Kyoshiro Nemuri series from the '60s but there are many good ones from that era.

movies
 

Well you should watch Zatoichi or Lone Wolf and cub, yojimbo, watch some of sonny chibas movies. The best Zatoichi movie is the last of the whole series http://www.japanforum.com/forum/images/smilies/cool.gif
:cool:.

RAN by akira kurosawa is pretty coool..
and "Samurai Reincarnation"..

Twilight Samurai was pretty good.

Zatoichi and Bohachi Bushido are great

Ooh! Samurai films, my fav.^^ I really liked Twilight Samurai...I can't wait for that director's third samurai film, Bushi no Ichibun.

When the Last Sword is Drawn--great title, but I thought that was about it. It was painful to watch. Too many men crying.:P

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Masaki Kobayashi yet. His Hara-kiri (Seppuku) is one of the best movies I've ever seen. It's a masterpiece. His Samurai Rebellion is also really good.

So is Okamoto's Kill!--entirely different. Very inky humor. Kurosawa is amazing of course and Iganaki's Musashi trilogy is lots of fun, too (great balance of action and romance:D).

'Seven Samurai' is by far the best that I've seen.

'Last Samurai' may be the worst...

azumi 1+2 do they count as samurai??? mmm maybe haha oh well they are really good films and aya ueto is prettyful :D

I love the Azumi movies!! I think they fall into Samurai movies!!
I aslo like Moon Over Tao Samurai Sci FI - Awesome!!
Kunoichi movies
Lone Wolf and Cub
Orochi
So many...

Yeah. I love Samurai Fiction.

the best samurai movie EVER !
would be

The Last Samurai

The Last Samurai - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

:rheart: :rheart: :vsign: :vsign:

You're joking, right?

lol no way

what is better ?

*snorts* Tom Cruise...:P It's an ok movie...the soundtrack is amazing and I liked seeing Ken Watanabe and Hiroyuki Sanada together, but it was too inaccurate for me to really love. If you've ever seen Dances with Wolves it's the same story, substituting American Indians for Japanese samurai.>>

What's better? Take your pick from everything else mentioned on this thread.^^ Though Zatoichi has been mentioned a lot and I haven't seen any of those yet.

actualy the only other samurai movies ive seen is
Azumi 1,2 they were good but i like the last samurai better :)

Hey, Last Samurai was a lot of fun, don't be dissin'!

Like most period pieces, it was based on events that did actually happen, but wasn't meant to be representative of what really happened. Jeez, movies like that are boring as hell (Gods and Generals, for instance). The Patriot is the same exact thing, really: the main bad guy was based on an actual person, but wasn't that person; the South Virginia militia did exist and was used, but there never was a Col. Martin of the Continental Army-blah-blah. It was still a good movie!

Lol, when I first saw a commercial for Last Samurai, I was with my dad in the movie theatre and we both turned to each other at the end and said, "There's no [fuckin'] way Tom Cruise is the last samurai, puh-leez!" Then later we went and saw it (in theatres) and walked away looking like Fuko from Clannad when she sees a starfish XD . Fortunately, no one near us had a juice box, or that might have been bad o_o; .

Sadly, LS is the only samurai movie I've seen, and I can't seem to find any way to watch the older ones online T_T . Anyone know a place?

Well, if LS is all you've seen then no wonder...you need to get some Kurosawa!:D As for watching films online, I don't know...I have Netflix, that's where I get my samurai-flick fix. Ack, sorry for the alliteration.^^ You might check out your library...I know mine has a great stock of older foreign films, that includes a lot of good samurai stuff.

I became a fan of Kurosawa the first time I saw one of his movies, and I was so young I was having trouble reading the subtitles! Tom Cruise in LS was the disney version of the story and I found it repugnant..... same as I did Dancing with Wolves. Ironically, LS was more sickening even DW was much closer to home.

Anyway..... Check out Rashomon if you haven't already seen that one. It seems to bring out a bit more soul than some of Kurosawa's other works with casts of thousands.

You shouldn't have any trouble finding them on VHS, if you still have something that will play them. ;)

Hi!
You may try "Sword of Doom" or "Kill" from Kihachi Okamoto, both with Tatsuya Nakadai. From the 60s, very good stuff (you may have already seen Nakadai in some Kurosawa's, Gosha's and even in one or two episodes of Zatoichi!). You may try Yôjimbo and its sequel by Kurosawa, and don't forget Mifune had played Yôjimbo twice more in a Zatoichi and in a Inagaki's movie. Concerning Inagaki's movies with Toshirô Mifune, you could see all of them especially "Samurai's banner" (adapted from the Inoue's novel "the sword of the Takeda") and the trilogy about Musashi (written by Eiji Yoshikawa).
All good 60s / 70s stuff!

Nice watching!:vsign:

Yojimbo was pretty sweet actually. I enjoyed Zatoichi too. And a movie called Death Trance, starring Tak Sakaguchi.

Shogun Asassin is a good movie. if you like kill bill you'll like this one.