Akira Kurosawa’s tale of ascetic mercenaries brought together for a single job inspired endless imitations, but the original has lost none of its magic
While researching samurai history for an Akira Kurosawa film project in the early 1950s, producer Sojiro Motoki discovered references to masterless warriors, or ronin, defending villages from marauders in 16th-century Japan. Movie history was made. Kurosawa and his co-writers Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni created an epic primal myth which has pulsated in cinema ever since, through the genres of westerns, war movies and crime dramas: the crew of ascetic, unsentimental but uncynical freelance mercenaries, brought together for a single job, taking pity on the desperate civilians who have nothing to offer but gratitude. They also see that there is a nobility and purity in this all-but-lost cause, which will refine their martial vocation as nothing else would.
Having been inspired by Hollywood westerns, Kurosawa...
While researching samurai history for an Akira Kurosawa film project in the early 1950s, producer Sojiro Motoki discovered references to masterless warriors, or ronin, defending villages from marauders in 16th-century Japan. Movie history was made. Kurosawa and his co-writers Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni created an epic primal myth which has pulsated in cinema ever since, through the genres of westerns, war movies and crime dramas: the crew of ascetic, unsentimental but uncynical freelance mercenaries, brought together for a single job, taking pity on the desperate civilians who have nothing to offer but gratitude. They also see that there is a nobility and purity in this all-but-lost cause, which will refine their martial vocation as nothing else would.
Having been inspired by Hollywood westerns, Kurosawa...
- 10/27/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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