2023, I went on a samurai binge. You know, sword-fighting movies from the islands of Japan. I started with the most revered movie in this group - Akira Kurusawa's The Seven Samurai. Good, really good. Unique culture, Unique hairstyles, Unique houses. But you need to be a movie buff to get into them. A casual viewer may want to stick to the easily consumable version - The Magnificent Seven.
I found almost all Samurai movies are slow-paced. Long chunks of storytelling followed by a few seconds of swordplay, followed by blood spewing like a fountain.
It all started with the accidental viewing of a movie called 'The Twilight Samurai' (2002). I loved this movie. Then I watched 'Kill Bill which had some fantastic swordplay.
So I went back in time. The first was 'Harakiri (1962). It slowly builds up to a twist. Then I saw 'Goyokin' with the same actor. Next was 'Samurai Wolf' 1966.
Not many woman characters in these movies. The one who are there are either whores or are quickly bumped off. Look whose talking, me from the land of Bollywood where the only job of women is to run around trees.
Then I landed a movie called 'Lone Wolf and Baby Cart'. The premise itself intrigued me. An assassin going around with a baby. I saw four movies in this series. All great. Then they, as it happens, started to drag a lot, so I let go.
Later I found a movie called 'Zatochi. It's about a blind masseuse. Interesting na. This happens to be the longest-running movie series. 26 or 27 movies made so far. I saw a few b/w and a few color ones. BTW Lone Wolf and Zatochi are brothers in real life. The actors I mean.
A new series called 'Shogun just dropped on my favorite streaming service, Torrents, and I am hooked. It's a slow burn and I hope its worth my time overall. (I gave up miday- Dont know why)
