Today’s Open Thread

It's amazing how many films we've ripped off of Japanese cinema. "Yojimbo" became "A Fistful of Dollars"; "Seven Samurai" because "The Magnificent Seven"; "Rashomon" became "The Outrage" (boy, that was a lousy remake); and "Ring" became "The Ring", etc.

But we couldn't imitate Toshiro Mifune. In fact, since his death, the Japanese haven't been able to imitate him either. (I should add that no one's been able to imitate Kurosawa either.)

I declare Ted should not ever touch these classics under penalty of rejoining with Jane.

I heard somewhere that George Lucas wanted to cast Toshiro Mifune as Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars". It makes sense since the name is vaguely Asian sounding. Woulda been awesome.

Ahh a classic to be sure. Only Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns have done well as tribute or polite imitation. Many imitators but only one Yojimbo….or Zatoichi.

Kurosawa/Mifune is a great director/actor combo–better than Scorcese/DeNiro. (Scorcese/DiCaprio isn't worth commenting on.) But the greatest director/actor combo is John Ford/John Wayne: Stagecoach, The Searchers, the Cavalry trilogy, The Quiet Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, They Were Expendable.

Mifune is one of my favorite actors, easily in the top five along with Wayne, Stewart, Holden and Heston.

The Samurai Trilogy, classic! Mifune movies (and the occasional Bruce Campbell flick) was the only reason I kept the satellite package with IFC as long as I did.

Agreed, much better than Jim Carey's Fury Blind.

Toshiro Mifune rocks. Love this movie. BTW… hulu has most of the Zatoichi movies.

The first time I saw Yojimbo I was amazed by how well Sergio Leone had captured the spirit of it.
Then as I kept watching I became even more amazed at how Akira Kurosawa transcended two vastly different cultures with Yojimbo.
A true master filmmaker.

Yeah, it upsets me too.

I sure hope so, there were so many unanswered questions.

Tagline for the movie: They just $%@! with the wrong Japanese!
(machete)

C'mon now, "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas" are still astounding. And I can't believe you'd dismiss Wayne/Ford so easily! Or even Stewart/Hitchcock.

Did you see "Surrogates?" In another "near future" people live completely through their incredibly lifelike robots, which are all gorgeous and young, while the "operators" sit at home in their pajamas, flabby, grey, unshaven and pimply. Bruce Willis does a decent job, and while the plot never really surprises, it reminded me of "Gattaca" in that it posits that the pursuit of superficial physical perfection (and lack of fear of physical harm because the robot "surrogates" can't experience pain) has robbed humanity of that critical motivational spark that makes us, well, human. Not a hit when it came out, but I'd say it's worth a rental.

Since this is OpenThread, I'll share a silly movie thrill: I recently visited Alcatraz for the first time this summer and last week saw "Escape From Alcatraz" which I'd never seen. While it's always fun to see a place you've visited in a movie (at least I think it is), I have to say they really did an exceptional job in capturing the feel of it (that place has some serious weird juju around it), and definitely maximized the use of the actual location. A pretty great movie (and Bonus! Clint's bare butt!) all around.

Toshiro Mifune…what a screen presence! He's a titan in this one, one of Kurosawa's best (and most fun) films.

Good luck with the unpacking and congrats on new digs! I would say "Surrogates" is prob. weakest in the action department (and maybe why it didn't do so well–people wanted more rock 'em sock 'em robots, not so much talking) Surrogates isn' exactly subtle with the comparisons on how much we're mired in our online/texting/facebook lives, but I think it does it well. If hubby liked Gattacta, I think he'll enjoy it. (or be too tired from the unpacking to resist)

Yes, Yojimbo just kicked ass. The sequel Sanjuro was great too, but nothing before or since ever had the black comedy punch of Yojimbo.

Favorite Yojimbo lines:

"I'll get paid for killing…and there's a whole lot of people in this town better off dead."

"Hey cooper, two new coffins….wait, maybe three."

Sonny Chiba was good.

Or Grant/Hitchcock.

The Seven Samurai?

I was thinking something similar, I have been replaying Red Dead Redemption and Was thinking it would be an awesome format for a Samurai game or they should dig deeper in to the spaghetti westerns.

Great game, just wish you could get on of those cars, would have been fun running down buffalo or bears lol

Payne: The irony of Jesse Jackson's stripped SUV http://www.detnews.com/article/20100903/MIVIEW/10...

Read that again: Jackson’s Caddy SUV was stripped while he was in town promoting green jobs.

Nah, nothing's been spoiled. I didn't really figure you could operate a car.

My God, I didn't know that. Thanks for the information. (And here I was thinking that Ford inspired only American directors.)

Samurai Saturday was awesome. Up to that point, the only Kurosawa I had seen was Seven Samurai. That was my first exposure to Zatoichi and I became addicted. That's also how I saw the Samurai Trilogy. A pox on IFC for ending it.

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