Need Help Identifying Old Samurai Movie

[Tony]

While growing up many years ago, I saw a black and white Japanese film, probably from the 1950's, about a small band of Samurai that were defending a castle or rural village. The were badly outnumbered. In the fighting each Samurai would be fighting 5-7 opponents. Whenever they got near eachother, the Samurai would slide back-to-back with eachother so that they would not have to worry about their backs. Does anyone remember seeing such a film and might you recall it's name?
Thank you.
Tony.
Tampa, Florida, USA

[thomas]

Hi Tony, and welcome on board! :)

Your description reminded me of Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" (Shichinin-no Samurai) from 1954, but I'm not sure if you refer to that movie.

Here are some links:

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/17/10_samurai.html

http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/cjs/films/reviews/sevensamurai.html

http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/kurosawa/sevensamurai/

[moyashi]

I'm pretty sure that's the movie he's referring to.

Stars Toshio Masafune, one of the greatest "actor swordsmen" in Japan.

It seems that "Shoot out at OK corral" was also based on that movie.

This movie is also what brought Kurosawa to world lime light and created a new film technique involving action scenes from different parts of the story at once. Some of my students mentioned that Episode 1 and the energy ball battle was very similar to the Seven Samurai movie. :D

[thomas]

Another famous movie based on Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" was "The Magnificent Seven" starring Yul Brunner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, a very young Horst Buchholz et.al.

:ninja:

[Tony]

Dear Thomas and Moyashi -

Thanks for the input. I resaw Seven Samurai this weekend thinking it was the one I remembered. They fought at the entry to the village and then killed the bandits in the center of the village after letting them in one or two at a time.

The movie I'm thinking about had fight scenes inside of houses. I'm trying to find that scene where the samurai draw together like magnets fighting back-to-back. It's an image that makes obvious the benefit of working together.

If you have any other ideas, please let me know.
Thanks,

Tony

[moyashi]

oh boy, sounds like half of the Jidai Geki I've seen then (jidai geki - samuari soap box dramas).

Still, betting it's a Kurosawa movie ... errr unless you've found one of the movies entitled samurai which would probably be the Miyamoto Musashi films.

I've not seen to many other movies that have leaked outside of Japan beyond those. I used to hit the block buster video shop pretty hard when I used to live in the states.

[larry_s]

Here's Amazon's Top Ten Samurai Movie list, maybe you'll find it here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/384DINEW7H4OX/qid=1022234306/sr=5-2/ref=sr_5_2/002-9844409-3772068

Check out Kurosawa's movies available as DVD:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=dvd&field-format=dvd&field-director=Kurosawa%2C%20Akira/ref=pd_simart_detail/002-9844409-3772068

[nebosuke]

...Toshio Masafune...

Did you mean Toshiro Mifune?

As for what movie it may be, I can't really say. Maybe give Yojimbo a viewing, it takes place within a villiage where the lead character plays two warring clans against each other, so there is a lot of indoor and outdoor opportunities for a scene such as the one described.