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Post by Batflunkie on Sept 15, 2024 22:27:52 GMT -5
Recently I got the itch to watch Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy, starring Toshiro Mifune as Musashi Miyamoto. The films are far from perfect, but reminded me of the magnetic charisma that Mifune possessed. There was one Saturday morning where TCM was airing the whole trilogy and I was so heartbroken and mad that I had to miss it because I was working that day. Thankfully the trilogy is fairly easy to find on home video and streaming. Love Japanese Period dramas (both tv and film) so much. They always seem, much like medieval period movies, to be almost fairy tail like enough to seem like they're from another reality. IDK, maybe that's just me
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Post by berkley on Sept 16, 2024 2:09:30 GMT -5
I should watch those too sometime soon. I've never seen them but years ago I read the novel they were based on, Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa, and it was excellent. I will enthusiastically second this. The novel was originally a newspaper serial, making it essentially the Japanese equivalent of an Alexandre Dumas novel. The English version runs close to 1000 pages, and that's an abridgment! Despite the length, having been originally published in short installments means it keeps moving. It's a very entertaining read. Fun fact: James Clavell's Shogun ends at the historical battle whose aftermath begins Musashi. I'll respond to this in the books thread because it might lead to further questions relating to Clavell and various other books
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Post by commond on Sept 16, 2024 2:44:53 GMT -5
Recently I got the itch to watch Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy, starring Toshiro Mifune as Musashi Miyamoto. The films are far from perfect, but reminded me of the magnetic charisma that Mifune possessed. I should watch those too sometime soon. I've never seen them but years ago I read the novel they were based on, Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa, and it was excellent.
Speaking of Japanese film, the other night I saw Battles Without Honour or Humanity for the first time. It was great but I hadn't realised how closely all the sequels run together - more like a tv miniseries or an LotR style movie series than a franchise like Bond or The Fast and the Furious. So I'm probably going to try to see the sequels much sooner than I'd originally intended.
I'm a big fan of Battles Without Honor or Humanity. Love me some Bunta Sugawara.
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 18, 2024 13:47:04 GMT -5
Sometimes I think about making a “Top 10 Japanese movies” list. But I’ve seen a lot of Japanese movies. And when I try to make a list, I end up with 20 or 30 movies, and I keep thinking of more. Trying to whittle it down to 10, and then to rank them, it’s just too hard to do.
But The Yakuza Papers (also commonly known as the Battles Without Honor or Humanity series (five films in the original series with numerous sequels) is definitely a contender. I would just list the whole series as The Yakuza Papers and I would still have nine slots for my favorite Japanese movies.
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Post by berkley on Sept 19, 2024 2:14:08 GMT -5
Sometimes I think about making a “Top 10 Japanese movies” list. But I’ve seen a lot of Japanese movies. And when I try to make a list, I end up with 20 or 30 movies, and I keep thinking of more. Trying to whittle it down to 10, and then to rank them, it’s just too hard to do. But The Yakuza Papers (also commonly known as the Battles Without Honor or Humanity series (five films in the original series with numerous sequels) is definitely a contender. I would just list the whole series as The Yakuza Papers and I would still have nine slots for my favorite Japanese movies.
Yes, I was amazed when I read they made those first five in such a short span of time - just two or three years, was it? But after seeing the first one and reading a little more about it, I can see that those five films are more one big story than a series of different stories featuring the same character. I didn't know beforehand that it was based on the memoirs of a Yakuza member.
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