Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

Konichi wa!! Is anyone out there into samurai cinema? It was Usagi that got me into it.I wanted to see the films that inspired Usagi.
I started off with the obvious classics; Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Seven Samurai,Sword of Doom,etc. And my collection has grown!

I want to thank Sakai-sensei and his marvellous creation for inspiring me to collect these movies. And for also rekindling my love for Kung Fu flicks!!I am now working on my own "funny-animal" comic idea. Right now...just for the fun of it. It has to be fun...or it's just not worth doing!

"Anything worth doing is worth doing right!"

Abayo!!

good luck and much fun to you for your funny animal comic....I have worked on one idea, too...la ormiga de la noche!!;)...
I always loved kung fu movies, especially the ones starring bruce lee(enter the dragon being my favourite) and jackie chan(snake in the eagle's shadow if you translate it from the german title....)
from akira kurosawa I have only seen one movie that I once baught, the seven samurai, but I must have some of his other films on vhs at home....

Dear Readers,
13 Assassins was great, however I have only seen the edited version.
Currently I am enjoying watching Goemon on Netflix.
Best wishes to all!
go

Yoji Yamada's The Twilight Samurai is another good one. It's a bit slower and the overall tone is a bit more gentle than the other samurai movies mentioned here, but it's still really good. It may be the closest thing we have to a UY movie. The same director made two other movies, The Hidden Blade and Love and Honor, that form sort of a loose trilogy. They're worth seeing too.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0351817/

I need to see some more samurai movies. I'm pretty limited to Kurosawa and Zatoichi as is. Twilight Samurai is one I mean to see, and Criterion's "Rebel Samurai" boxed set looks attractive.

I, too, became interested in Japanese "Samurai" films from reading Usagi Yojimbo. There are sooo many good ones out there, it is hard to narrow down a list of recommendations.

Yoji Yamada's trilogy of films are probably among the best original films made in the genre in the last 10 or so years. Miike, director of the recent 13 assassins, is just one of a long line of directors remaking older films.

I have to claim preferrence for the "classical" era of films from the 1950's (including Kurasawa's Seven Samurai and Inagaki's Musashi trilogy), and the "New Wave" era which started in the 1960's with films like Kurasawa's Yojjimbo, Gosha's Three Outlaw Samurai, Okamoto's Sword of Doom, and Kobayashi's Seppaku (Harakiri), as well as film series featuring characters like Zatoichi and Nemuri Kyoshiro.

(The Rebel Samurai DVD set features some great films from this era)

While there were still a lot of good "Samurai" films made in the 1970's, they were startingto lose a battle with all the new "samurai" television programs and had to start offering material which could not be shown on TV, mainly more violence and nudity. The Lone Wolf and Cub series of films, mainly directed by Misumi, are the best known from this era of "exploitation" films.

Speaking of the Samurai" television series, there were quite a few good ones produced, including a Zatoichi series which featured Shintaro Katsu (star of the Zatoichi film series), a Lone Wolf and Cub series (actually better than the film series and which followed the manga stories pretty closely), and a series called "The Mute Samura" which starred Wakayama Tomisaburo (star of the Lone Wolf and Cub film series) as a samurai on a mission of vengence.

Television also produced some of the longest lasting series around, series like MITO KOMON (1969) - 1152 episodes and ABARENBO SHOGUN (1975) - 832 episodes, both series which spanned decades.

A great web-site about Samurai Films is The Jidai_Geki Knights

One of my favorite Kung-Fu movies is the subtitled Iron Monkey. It's been years since I've seen it but the fight scenes were "over the top." I was fortunate to see it on the big screen as part of an Asian movie festival. It was very funny too. They have a dubbed version but I haven't seen it so I don't know if it is good or not.

Peace, maka

Iron Monkey is terrific--sort of a Robin Hood/superhero kung fu movie. Avoid Iron Monkey 2, though.

Konichi wa!! OOPS!!! I've already picked up "Iron Monkey 2".Although I haven't watched it yet. I got it used and real cheap. "Iron Monkey 1" is my favorite kung fu movie! A chinese Zorro!
And the fight scenes are truly amazing!! I have both versions; the "americanized" one with the better english dub and a cool score( for which I have the soundtrack CD) and the original chinese release with a bad english dub and a lack-luster score.

But...it has extended scenes and scenes deleted from the american version.

I've also gotten into some "Thai" films like "Ong Bak" and "Dynamite Warrior". Where the heroes use "Muay Thai" boxing! And, I'm still adding to my Samurai film collection.

Abayo!!

Konichiwa!! My new altime favorite kung fu movie is Jet Li's "Fearless"!! And number's 2 & 3 are the two "Ip Man" films!! "Iron Monkey is now in 4th position.
And I picked up a samurai flick called "Shinsengumi". It stars my favorite japanese actor Mifune Toshiro!! Subarashi!! I highly recommend it!

Abayo!!

true legend is an awesome kung fu movie and one of the last samurai movies i have seen is festival of swordsmen

Great topic!

I don't have much to add here, just some reflections on what I like and have in my personal collection...

I think I've had an interest in Samurai movies since I was a kid, but didn't really get into them until I started buying them from a local DVD store about 6 or 7 years ago.

Like many of you I have the Kurosawa classics Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro. I have the Lone Wolf & Cub collection, the entire Zatoichi collection, and a few more that escape memory at the moment.

I also enjoy various anime like Samurai Champloo, Rurouni Kenshin, Tsukikage Ran.

I guess some of my favorite "kung fu' style movies would be more current releases like Crouching Tiger, Fearless, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers.