11/30/03

The Least Samurai

Friday at Turner Classic Movies, Edward Zwick and Tom Cruise took over TCM and showed a whole slew of Kurosawa samurai movies--"Seven Samurai" (of course), "Yojimbo," "Throne of Blood," plus the odd
Gate of Hell," each of which they talked about with much enthusiasm and love.

Big mistake, I think. If Zwick, who I pretty much think is an inept director, wants his "Last Samurai" to come off as being at least passable, he shouldn't be reminding us of how GOOD a samurai movie can be. Just sitting down to a few moments of each film is enough to make me dissatisfied with anything else, even if Kurosawa rose up from the dead to try again...

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