Sazar

I watched this movie a long time ago, gave it another look/see tonight since I was bored.

The classic Kurosawa movie has spawned many imitators, many plot lifts, many pretenders and there are none that come even close to this great movie.

It has some minor flaws, undoubtedly, but keep in mind when this was made.

A lot like Gone with the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird, this movie is a timeless classic.

The framing of the scenes, the way in which new scenes are introduced (yep, Star Wars borrows heavily from this movie), the sheer depth of the characters, the various goals and vendetta's, the literal humanity of the characters with their flaws and virtues, they all take this movie a notch above great.

For a movie involving so much swordplay and so many stunts, this movie has zero blood. Yep, that's right, no blood. All the deaths are pure choreography. By today's standards (think Blade or something similar) it is very tame, but the poignancy of the actions and the reactions of the people make it a much better.

The major characters are tremendously acted. The villagers portrayed with the right amount of fear, regret, courage and madness. The samurai's are perfectly represented by the brave, the courageous, the crazy, the young, the exceptional and so forth.

It is a long movie and you have to truly appreciate this art form to like this movie. I rarely sit through an entire movie like this. Let's just say the evening started with 3 people watching and ended with me being the only one still up. But it was well worth it, all 15 hours of it.

I have to give this movie a 5/5 (my first) even with the flaws, just because of what it represents and the impact Kurosawa had on movies in the western world. This movie is the epitome of movie makers strive to achieve. He did it, and followed up with some more unbelievable classics over the years

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ray_gillespie

Yeah it's a great film, though quite heavily dated. I can't imagine what it must have been like in 1950s Japan!

I'd give it 4/5 which is pretty generous for me. It's almost worth watching just for that scene with the rapid cuts of them running!

Much much better than The Magnificent Seven too.

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fitz

This is one of the few movies that are worth staying up to watch in it's whole. Had I been there, there would have been one other person up with ya!

I remember watching this film way back and bringing it out every couple years to remind myself of a great film. Strangely enough, I saw this again too recently when I caught it playing on TV in all it's uncut and uninterrupted glory.

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Sazar

The magnificent 7 was based off of this movie. The original is undeniably better than the pretender in almost all cases. I have found very few movies that are even close to the original inspiration. Shaun of the Dead, for example, is just as good as Romero's classic, albeit in a whole other genre

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