Marc’s Samurai Theater: Film Shogunate

When I was a kid on the playground, we would pretend to be cowboys, ninjas, and superheroes. We would run around, screaming at each other, play acting, shooting imaginary bullets, dodging imaginary throwing stars. It was fun, but I was still somewhat unsatisfied about this arrangement. Unlike my childhood friends, I didn’t want to be a cowboy or a ninja. I wanted to be a samurai.

Back then, to be honest, I only had a vague notion of what a samurai actually was. Aside from John Belushi’s samurai character on SNL and the occasional issue of Wolverine, I was quite clueless. Yet my young mind could not deny the fact that something very cool was there, on the fringes of my awareness, just waiting to take over my life. My imagination would not be denied.

It seems a very hip thing to say that the first samurai movie you ever saw was Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai. I wish I was that hip. In my case, this is not true. The first samurai flick I ever saw was the Inagaki directed Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto, starring the legendary Toshiro Mifune, the man who would fast become my hero. This movie was the first in a trilogy chronicling the life of the legendary swordsman, Musashi Miyamoto. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! Feudal Japan was a whole other world! A whole other universe! It was so wonderful, so vibrant, so exotic! There were towns, with temples and castles and bridges and miles and miles of countryside. It was a world full of adventure, danger, but most importantly, in my young mind, guys with swords! Who walks around with a sword?? Now, obviously I had seen and loved Star Wars and both Jedi and Sith carried lightsabers, but that was just space fantasy. (Come to find out later, Star Wars was inspired by my beloved samurai flicks!) Samurai I was history! True, it was in a faraway land, in a time I had never lived in, but it had happened! It was really like that! That was irresistible.

Like most young geeks, I read comics and was obsessed with superheroes. (Admittedly, that hasn’t really changed.) Any discerning reader will tell you that Marvel heroes were the best because they weren’t perfect, had problems, and made sacrifices. Peter Parker immediately comes to mind. Miyamoto, as played by Mifune, seemed to me to be a hero in the Mighty Marvel mold. He wasn’t born a hero; he had to work for it. He had to learn, suffer, and make sacrifices in his quest to become a master swordsman. In the beginning, he was a wild bandit named Takezo, who dreamed of being a samurai. He sought to change. He fought hard to be better. A monk locked him in a library and told him that he was not leaving until he read every single book in the place. Then he would journey forth, travel and hone his skills. Sound like Batman? Miyamoto was way cooler than Batman. Why? Well, Miyamoto had a sword!

Of course, after all this, I was addicted. I needed more. It was around this time that I discovered the works of the master: Akira Kurosawa. (To this day, Kurosawa remains my favorite filmmaker of all time, as any frequent viewer of Stubs could tell you. What? You’ve never seen Stubs? Well then, go watch it! It’s on the site! I’ll wait… ) Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Hidden Fortress, Throne of Blood. I noticed that all these wonderful movies also had that Mifune guy in them. I would say that the Kurosawa-Mifune team is the best director-actor team in movie history. I can’t think of anyone else who comes close. Their body of work together is unrivaled anywhere in world cinema. Words cannot describe how deeply they affected me. Kurosawa’s heroes were almost stubborn in their single minded quest to do what they thought was right, no matter what the odds. It was all about the individual’s ability to change the world, even on a small scale. The samurai in Seven Samurai risk all to protect the farmers from the ruthless bandits. I had never seen heroism on the scale before. Just pure. Selfless.

Sticking with those ideas, the samurai movies were among my first introductions to the ideas of honor and duty. Discipline and respect. The Samurai were a warrior class. They served their lords with loyalty and lived lives of honor and virtue. That was the most noble thing I had ever heard of. It’s something I definitely tried to aspire to. It made me want to live a better life. One of honesty and integrity.

The samurai movie has often been compared, a bit unfairly I think, to the American Western. There are some similarities. Both showcase a shared cultural history. You don’t have to explain what a western is to an American. They already know. It’s part of our history. The same is true for samurai movies in Japan. I think the fact that so many samurai movies have been remade as westerns speaks volumes of the universal appeal of their themes and stories. Most famously Seven Samurai was remade as The Magnificent Seven. Rashomon was remade as The Outrage. Yojimbo was redone as a spaghetti western starring some guy named Clint Eastwood called A Fistful of Dollars. Of course, beyond the western, much has been made of Star Wars’ similarities to Hidden Fortress. What is a Jedi if not a space age samurai? In that case, I was thrilled that something as awesome as Hidden Fortress could inspire something as awesome as Star Wars. Where would we be without Star Wars? I choose not to think about it. Too depressing.

Another thing that appealed to me was that Kurosawa in particular made Shakespeare a lot more fun. Forced to watch Macbeth in high school, I would sit back, close my eyes and think of Throne of Blood. I have to read King Lear? I imagine Hidetora from Ran. After Kurosawa, English class was never the same.

I could go on and on. The samurai genre, I believe, has an epic quality that is just unmatched by pretty much every other genre in cinema. These movies captured my attention at a young age and they are never letting it go. I’m just fine with that.