Now we begin the Samurai Trilogy, directed by Hiroshi Inagaki and staring Toshiro Mifune as the larger than life legend of Japan, Musashi Miyamoto.
First off, I bought this blu-ray edition at the 50% off Criterion sale that happens at Barnes and Noble from time to time - I expressed in Seven Samurai my love for Samurai Cinema, and in fact have probably seen every Samurai film released by Criterion, and more than a few of them first on the big screen before the DVD's were released - but I watched this trilogy the first time several years ago, right as I was starting out and I'm pretty sure I didn't have as good an appreciation for it as I have now
Instead of blowing my entire night typing everything and not having anything for parts II and III, tonight, I'll just talk about Musashi - Musashi Miyamoto is probably the most famous samurai in Japan - (in fact, he's often just known as Musashi - if you say that name, people will know who he is)
He was renown as a master swordsman, a very cultured and gifted painter and poet, and writer of "The Book of Five Rings" - a master text on Samurai and Martial arts. He fought 60 duels and never lost one. There is a chance he is romanticized a bit - there are stories of his famous duel on Ganryu island being fought after some folks worked over his opponent and that he came and went in such a way he could immediately flee with the tide after the battle, but I digress
What you may be interested in knowing is that there have been over 100 films done on Musashi, and this trilogy is based on a novel - (rather a serialized story with about 1000 chapters in the newspaper) - the movie follows that novel closely, but the novel does NOT follow the real life events of Musashi very well - a lot of this movie is invented but hey, that's what makes a good story.
In the first movie, we see Musashi molded from a wild villager to a disciplined Samurai who leaves Kyoto knowing he has much to learn - He gets help along the way, especially from a Zen Monk named Takuan who makes the Mother Superior in Blues Brothers look like Mother Teresa - There are some love interests and some friends who either aid or distract him along the way - but this movie is like the first movie in a Superhero Trilogy like Iron Man - it establishes the character and shows us where he came from. It is a transformation in awesome Eastman Color (rare for most Japanese movies of this time) - but the novel was like a Japanese version of Gone With the Wind, and some of the color and music do remind me of that setup - it's a fairly traditional story, without a lot of Samurai gore and blood, but plenty of action.
In Part II I'll talk a bit about Mifune
No comments:
Post a Comment