All last month, I’ve been looking for Seven Samurai on DVD at rental stores. Blockbuster had it for a while, but they didn’t have a working copy (or so they told me). A week later, the store just pulled it outright.
The other two independent stores didn’t have it either, which was quite suprising. Today, I looked on bestbuy.com, amazon.com, and went downstairs to Borders to check prices. $35 is in my price range, but I’m simply not going to spend that much money on a movie I’ve never seen (regardless of the rave reviews I’ve seen on the boards).
So today, I’m reading the local movie reviews, and seeing what’s in the theaters. Seven Samurai?!? What the…? Turns out, an indie theater is having a one-week run on the big screen, and today’s the last day! Well, I’m going straight after work to get me a ticket.
Well, I hope it’s a new print - It’s a nice-looking film. I’ve seen it once or twice as a full, pay-attention movie, and a couple of times at the video store which I managed, sometimes with the film historian commentary enabled. If you have the desire to see it, I think you’ll appreciate it. Bear in mind, it was made 45 years ago (IIRC) and does have some of that feel. But worth a big-screen viewing… Hell, I haven’t even seen it on the big screen, and I had a couple of opportunities when I lived in San Fran…
Damn good movie. I won’t buy it, but I’m certainly glad I saw it. There were points where it was entirely too long, points where the cultural difference was very apparent, and points that were absolutely excellent.
Can anyone tell me what the non-samurai samurai’s new name meant? They said that it would be appropriate, and all laughed, but the subtitle didn’t reveal any translation.
And could the old guy get a new facial expression? Please?
You can rent The Seven Samurai, as well as a number of other Kurosawa movies, from Netflix. Netflix has the restored version of the Seven Samurai in stock for rental. What a beautiful movie.
I got it off netflix when I saw it for the first time. I thought it was a great movie, and I’d definitely pay to see it up on the bigscreen
Now, Blue Velvet, which I got at the same time (criticaly acclaimed you know:rolleyes:) was the worst piece of crap I think I’ve ever seen.
He stole his name by stealing a real samurai’s family scroll. When he gave his name the Leader samurai, Kambei Shimada, noticed that, according to the birthdate on the scroll, he would only be 13 years old. So the other samurais laughed and called him “Thirteen” for the rest of the movie, or so I think. The credits list his charactor as named Kikuchiyo. My subtitled version always said “thirteen”
Also, as one samurai is painting a flag to use to rally the troops of the village, he shows the banner as being the sign for village, topped by 6 circles, representing the samurai, when Kikuchiyo
petulantly asked “where’s me?” the samurai points to a triangle and says “that’s you.” (meaning he’s different, not quite one of their order but with them just the same.) it also gets a big laugh.