Back in the 70s in the summer to escape the city heat I'd go to the The Thalia, a tiny Upper West Side theater that would show all the Japanese Samurai films...The Zatoichi films are my favorites.
Bret, it's getting ridiculous how connected we are. I've been immersed in the samurai oeuvre for decades. When Mifune faces off with Tatsuya Nakadai in the ultimate one-stroke duel: psssssh! sound of blood squirting. My memory fails at whether that was Sanjuro or Yojimbo? And the Samurai Trilogy, OMG, directed by Hiroshi Inagaki. Yes yes all of them: Zatoichi meets the world! I first viewed these films at the Kokusai Theatre in San Francisco in the 80s. The story of the maturation of Miyamoto Musashi, author of The Five Rings and many more. YEs indeed!
Bret, it's lovely to benefit from your intellectual firepower. AT THIS MOMENT when I turn to the other keyboard, E minor 9. root chord. . Jetty brand haze, battery powered.
What about Kurosawa's "Dreams"? An odd series of stories, some of which are bizarre and others deeply affecting? I loved "The Wedding Of The Foxes". Was this his last film?
Akira Kurosawa’s final feature film was Madadayo (1993), which translates to “Not Yet.”
It’s a quiet, reflective film about a beloved aging professor and his former students, inspired by the life of Japanese academic Hyakken Uchida. The title refers to a game children play, where they say “Madadayo” (“Not yet!”) when asked if they’re ready — a metaphor for the professor’s (and Kurosawa’s) refusal to say goodbye to life.
Though Kurosawa wrote and storyboarded additional projects after Madadayo, including the unfinished The Sea is Watching (eventually directed by Kei Kumai in 2002), Madadayo remains the final film he personally directed. It’s often seen as his cinematic farewell — gentle, warm, and tinged with mortality.
Ha, yes, the Seven Samurai affected me deeply, as well, even the American remake of the Magnificent Seven.
While I prefer, as a woman, perhaps, gentler Japanese films, like Woman in the Dunes, I will forever remain a fan of the Seven Samurai!
Back in the 70s in the summer to escape the city heat I'd go to the The Thalia, a tiny Upper West Side theater that would show all the Japanese Samurai films...The Zatoichi films are my favorites.
Loved their double bills. And just a few blocks down, The New Yorker Theatre.
Bret, it's getting ridiculous how connected we are. I've been immersed in the samurai oeuvre for decades. When Mifune faces off with Tatsuya Nakadai in the ultimate one-stroke duel: psssssh! sound of blood squirting. My memory fails at whether that was Sanjuro or Yojimbo? And the Samurai Trilogy, OMG, directed by Hiroshi Inagaki. Yes yes all of them: Zatoichi meets the world! I first viewed these films at the Kokusai Theatre in San Francisco in the 80s. The story of the maturation of Miyamoto Musashi, author of The Five Rings and many more. YEs indeed!
Bret, it's lovely to benefit from your intellectual firepower. AT THIS MOMENT when I turn to the other keyboard, E minor 9. root chord. . Jetty brand haze, battery powered.
Any available with Yiddish captioning?
What about Kurosawa's "Dreams"? An odd series of stories, some of which are bizarre and others deeply affecting? I loved "The Wedding Of The Foxes". Was this his last film?
Akira Kurosawa’s final feature film was Madadayo (1993), which translates to “Not Yet.”
It’s a quiet, reflective film about a beloved aging professor and his former students, inspired by the life of Japanese academic Hyakken Uchida. The title refers to a game children play, where they say “Madadayo” (“Not yet!”) when asked if they’re ready — a metaphor for the professor’s (and Kurosawa’s) refusal to say goodbye to life.
Though Kurosawa wrote and storyboarded additional projects after Madadayo, including the unfinished The Sea is Watching (eventually directed by Kei Kumai in 2002), Madadayo remains the final film he personally directed. It’s often seen as his cinematic farewell — gentle, warm, and tinged with mortality.
Hit me with erudition, man. I've got to see this film.