The Seven Samurai

[Goldfinger]

Hi All:
When I was a kid back in the early 1960's- I had a chance to watch "The Seven Samurai" directed by Kurosawa. I have been completely fascinated by this movie ever since. It ranks in my top 5 list and I always show it to other people whenever I can - just to introduce them to the great movies of Kurosawa.
Here in the United States it's usually ranked somewhere between #5 and #10
on the best movies of all time lists. Depends on which list you look at. These lists are usually made of of ordinary people who vote for their favorite movies.
Just out of curiousity - where does "The Seven Samurai" rank in Japan?
Steve:beer:

[Da Monstar]

I got a very sad news for ya then. The americans (You'se guys) are going make a remake of "Seven Samurai".
I can't really remember who was going to direct it, but so far there has been romour about George Clooney and Zhang Zhiyi should have been offered a role in the movie.
Also some Yen guy from Hero was supposed to be part of the production, so we're probably gonna see some highflying combats and the works.

[xerxes99]

I got a very sad news for ya then. The americans (You'se guys) are going make a remake of "Seven Samurai".
I can't really remember who was going to direct it, but so far there has been romour about George Clooney and Zhang Zhiyi should have been offered a role in the movie.
Also some Yen guy from Hero was supposed to be part of the production, so we're probably gonna see some highflying combats and the works.

There's already been one. It was called the magnificent seven. It came out in 1960
:cool:

[Goldfinger]

I got a very sad news for ya then. The americans (You'se guys) are going make a remake of "Seven Samurai".
I can't really remember who was going to direct it, but so far there has been romour about George Clooney and Zhang Zhiyi should have been offered a role in the movie.
Also some Yen guy from Hero was supposed to be part of the production, so we're probably gonna see some highflying combats and the works.
Hi:
You can't be serious:( :( I haven't heard of this but knowing Hollywoods penchant for screwing everything up- It would not surprise me.
Steve

[Da Monstar]

I did not knew that there already was made a remake.

I do however know, as Goldfinger put it "...knowing Hollywoods penchant for screwing everything up"

[Goldfinger]

There's already been one. It was called the magnificent seven. It came out in 1960
:cool:
I take it Toshiro Mifune was one of your favorite actors? He is certainly one of my favorites because of his magnificent acting in a number of films.
Steve :beer: :beer:

[mad pierrot]

Actually, the magnificent seven was pretty good......

[xerxes99]

yeah mifune is my favorite actor. and magnificent seven was a great western.
Did anyone else pick up the seven samurai figures that were recently available in japan? i almost have them all now.

[Mycernius]

Battle Beyond the Stars was a sci-fi remake. Not a good film

[Goldfinger]

:beer: :beer: Battle Beyond the Stars was a sci-fi remake. Not a good film
I had no idea The Seven Samurai was remade into a Sci-fi movie. I've never even heard of "Battle Beyond the Stars" so it must not have gotten any good reviews on it.
"The Hidden Fortress" however was remade into Star Wars by George Lucas. How he ever got the idea from watching The Hidden Fortress- I'll never know.
Steve :beer: :beer:

[Mycernius]

He didn't remake the Hidden fortress, he used ideas within the Hidden fortress in Star Wars. Better to say that it influenced Star Wars. George Lucas has even acknowledged this.

[Goldfinger]

He didn't remake the Hidden fortress, he used ideas within the Hidden fortress in Star Wars. Better to say that it influenced Star Wars. George Lucas has even acknowledged this.


You're right- "remake" was too strong of a word to use. Still- I wonder how and where he got the ideas from The Hidden Fortress to make Star Wars.:cool: You watch those two movies and you just wonder..... That's an amazing transformation from a 1950's black and white film to the 1970's high tech vision.

Steve

[RockLee]

I got a very sad news for ya then. The americans (You'se guys) are going make a remake of "Seven Samurai".
I can't really remember who was going to direct it, but so far there has been romour about George Clooney and Zhang Zhiyi should have been offered a role in the movie.
Also some Yen guy from Hero was supposed to be part of the production, so we're probably gonna see some highflying combats and the works.I read this last night:
Weinsteins want to remake Seven Samurai with Yen, Clooney, and Ziyi.
30 May 2006
Source: Yahoo News
Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen is set to lead in the Hollywood remake of Japanese classic "The Seven Samurai", alongside George Clooney and Chinese starlet Zhang Ziyi, a film company said.
Yen met with Hollywood heavyweight Harvey Weinstein during Cannes film festival to discuss the remake of the 1954 action film directed by Japanese master Akira Kurosawa.
Weinstein has invited Yen to play one of the seven sword heroes in the film, according to Mandarin Films, which represents the actor.
"Donnie has met Harvey Weinstein in Cannes to discuss the project," a spokeswoman for Mandarin Films told AFP. "We don't know more details as it is still at an early stage."
She said Weinstein has also invited Clooney and Zhang to lead the film. It is not clear how much the project will cost.
Yen, 43-year-old actor, director and action choreographer, has starred in over 40 films, including "Blade II", "Seven Swords" and Zhang Yimou's "Hero".
The Seven Samurai tells a story of seven Samurai heroes' who battle with 40 bandits who try to control and constantly attack a small village.


...
I saw "shichi nin no samurai" this week and thought it was a very good movie! :) I don't expect much from Hollywood's remake though.

[Da Monstar]

well someday Miramax is probably remaking the Samurai trilogi, with Ben Affleck as Musashi Miyamoto, and Matt Damon as Kojiro Sasaki. (this is just to prove a point, I do infact think highly of Both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as actors)

also to add to the "remaking" madness... the filming of the american "The Grudge II" has started, so far only a Teaser Poster has been released. It should be easy to google search.

[Goldfinger]

Is anyone aware of a top ten movie list of Japanese films? I would be curious to know which movies made it.
In the United States - the list contains classics like - "Citizen Kane"- "Gone With The Wind" - "Casablanca" - "African Queen" - "North By Northwest" and a few others.
I 'd like to know the Japanese equivalent.
Steve :beer: :beer:

[xerxes99]

Actually Disney's A Bug's Life was a remake of seven Samurai too.

[nice gaijin]

From Wikipedia:

Legacy

* A Playstation 2 game called Seven Samurai 20XX is based on the film. Its setting is a poor, dystopian future. Most of the characters' names are taken directly from the film.

* In 2004, Kurosawa's estate approved the production of an anime remake of the film, called Samurai 7. The animated series, which alters some elements of the tale (changing Kikuchiyo into a steam-powered robot, a side-story involving merchants), was released in Japan and the US in 2005. In 2006, the Independent Film Channel began airing the 26 episode series.

* The Magnificent Seven and its many unrelated "sequels," Battle Beyond the Stars, and The Wild East are all remakes of The Seven Samurai set in Mexico, space, and the post-Soviet countries, respectively.

* Juzo Itami's film Tampopo has references to both this film and the Spaghetti Westerns that Kurosawa was an inspiration for.

* The Hindi Bollywood film Sholay has a similar plot, but also reflects the other films of Kurosawa.

* The film Once Upon a Time in the West has a different plot, but closely reflects the style of Kurosawa's film.

* The comedy film Three Amigos spun a twist on the plot of The Seven Samurai: the gunslinging ronin are actually professional actors who think they are being hired to pretend to save a town from bandits. The same idea was later replicated in the animated film A Bug's Life and the Star Trek spoof Galaxy Quest.

* The Seven Samurai theme has also been adopted in several novels. Stephen King's novel Wolves of the Calla, part of his Dark Tower series mimics the action of the film.

* The mystery novel Potshot by Robert B. Parker also follows this pattern. Parker's detective hero Spenser gathers a group of six tough guys (all of whom had appeared in earlier novels in the series) to defend a small Arizona community.

* "The Seven Samurai" is also used as a nickname for the seven astronomers (Alan Dressler, Sandra Faber, Donald Lynden-Bell, Roberto Terlevich, Roger Davies, Gary Wegner and David Burstein) who first postulated the existence of the Great Attractor, a huge, diffuse region of material around 250 million light years away that results in the observed motion of our local galaxies.

* In Nintendo's Advance Wars video game series, the character Kanbei is named Kikuchiyo in the Japanese versions of the games (Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2 and Famicom Wars DS).

* The Game Boy Advance game Double Dragon Advance by Atlus/Million also featured another character named after Kikuchiyo as a boss in the game's fourth level (his name is shortened to Kikucho in the English language version).

* The Deep Space Nine episode "The Magnificent Ferengi" also cites the movie.

* In Marvel comics, and more precisely in the Earth X continuity, Iron Man built seven giant robots which he called "The Seven Silver Samurai". The name pays homage to both the "Seven Samurai", and Marvel's own Silver Samurai

* In issue 39 of David Lapham's independent comic Stray Bullets, a ronin Amy Racecar (the fantastic imaginary alter-ego of the series 'main' character) meets Kikuchiyo as he is following the other six samurai and they have a brief conversation. The remainder of the issue is more a strange take on Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo.

[Reiku]

You're right- "remake" was too strong of a word to use. Still- I wonder how and where he got the ideas from The Hidden Fortress to make Star Wars.:cool: You watch those two movies and you just wonder..... That's an amazing transformation from a 1950's black and white film to the 1970's high tech vision.
Steve
Remake may be too strong of a word, but "inspired by" is too weak.
He basically took all of the plot elements, rearanged them, and set them in space.
The two comic-relief peasants became R2-D2 and C3PO, constantly arguing and bickering as they are swept along by the course of events. Rokurota (Mifune) is mainly set in Obi-Wan's role--the duel he has with the enemy general, and that general's return after being disfigured and his eventually being turned from his wicked Damyio's side to help the heros of the story--all reeks of Obi-Wan and Darth Vader.
The strong willed princess who is evading capture after the destruction of her kingdom, is eventually rescued, and dances around a big bonefire with some Ewoks--er, I mean adherants of the Shinto religion...
...you get the picture.
All of the main characters and plot elements from Star Wars are there--just in a different order. And changing the setting from feudal japan to "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away"? That's nothing really, I've seen a production of L'Morte D'Artur done in a futuristic settng--all you're doing is changing the backdrop, any halfway-decent storyteller knows this trick.
It's a simple formula:
Katana = Lightsaber
Aldebran = Akizuki Clan
General Rokurota = General Kenobi
Ki = The Force
George Lucas = Plageurist
Now if only Kurosawa had directed the Star wars movies--that would have been incredible...

[xerxes99]

I read somewhere years ago, that at one point, Lucas tried to get Mifune to play Obi wan in the first star wars movie.

[Goldfinger]

From Wikipedia:
Legacy
* A Playstation 2 game called Seven Samurai 20XX is based on the film. Its setting is a poor, dystopian future. Most of the characters' names are taken directly from the film.
* In 2004, Kurosawa's estate approved the production of an anime remake of the film, called Samurai 7. The animated series, which alters some elements of the tale (changing Kikuchiyo into a steam-powered robot, a side-story involving merchants), was released in Japan and the US in 2005. In 2006, the Independent Film Channel began airing the 26 episode series.
* The Magnificent Seven and its many unrelated "sequels," Battle Beyond the Stars, and The Wild East are all remakes of The Seven Samurai set in Mexico, space, and the post-Soviet countries, respectively.
* Juzo Itami's film Tampopo has references to both this film and the Spaghetti Westerns that Kurosawa was an inspiration for.
* The Hindi Bollywood film Sholay has a similar plot, but also reflects the other films of Kurosawa.
* The film Once Upon a Time in the West has a different plot, but closely reflects the style of Kurosawa's film.
* The comedy film Three Amigos spun a twist on the plot of The Seven Samurai: the gunslinging ronin are actually professional actors who think they are being hired to pretend to save a town from bandits. The same idea was later replicated in the animated film A Bug's Life and the Star Trek spoof Galaxy Quest.
* The Seven Samurai theme has also been adopted in several novels. Stephen King's novel Wolves of the Calla, part of his Dark Tower series mimics the action of the film.
* The mystery novel Potshot by Robert B. Parker also follows this pattern. Parker's detective hero Spenser gathers a group of six tough guys (all of whom had appeared in earlier novels in the series) to defend a small Arizona community.
* "The Seven Samurai" is also used as a nickname for the seven astronomers (Alan Dressler, Sandra Faber, Donald Lynden-Bell, Roberto Terlevich, Roger Davies, Gary Wegner and David Burstein) who first postulated the existence of the Great Attractor, a huge, diffuse region of material around 250 million light years away that results in the observed motion of our local galaxies.
* In Nintendo's Advance Wars video game series, the character Kanbei is named Kikuchiyo in the Japanese versions of the games (Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2 and Famicom Wars DS).
* The Game Boy Advance game Double Dragon Advance by Atlus/Million also featured another character named after Kikuchiyo as a boss in the game's fourth level (his name is shortened to Kikucho in the English language version).
* The Deep Space Nine episode "The Magnificent Ferengi" also cites the movie.
* In Marvel comics, and more precisely in the Earth X continuity, Iron Man built seven giant robots which he called "The Seven Silver Samurai". The name pays homage to both the "Seven Samurai", and Marvel's own Silver Samurai
* In issue 39 of David Lapham's independent comic Stray Bullets, a ronin Amy Racecar (the fantastic imaginary alter-ego of the series 'main' character) meets Kikuchiyo as he is following the other six samurai and they have a brief conversation. The remainder of the issue is more a strange take on Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo.
Wow:cool: :cool: Thanks for all those tidbits!!!! Learned a lot more!!!
Steve