This is freaking brilliant. I am a huge fan of Akira Kurosawa and I love the original Star Wars films. I knew that Lucas took a lot of inspiration from the Japanese master, but I have never seen it so well explained, in awesome cartoons and drawings no less. Thanks so much for doing this, keep up the amazing work.
This side-by-side comparison between Star Wars, "A New Hope" and "Hidden Fortress" does a good job of showing similarities. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4g8r0LhpMzk.html
The plot of the seven samurai is the same as the Chinese classic epic novel "Water Margin". That is not the original story (the process of collecting heroes, Character setting, the many of heroes, etc.), and Chinese classics are widely used in Asia. And The heroic worldview is taken from the American Western.
Awesome video! Here's something I noticed: Galactic Empire: Nazis meets Imperial Japan in space. Rebel Alliance: World War 2 allies meets American Revolution colony soldiers Force: Qi gong Dark Side vs Light side: Yinyang Darth Vader: Samurai armor meets Sauron Darth Maul: evil Sun Wukong Han Solo: Space cowboy Luke Skywalker: Space American farmboy Emperor Palpatine: Space Caesar Storm troopers: Personification of white terror Chewbacca: Native American sidekick to old Western films There a lots more to list.
hunterkiller1440 Mind if i take a copy of this comment for my computer? Because I've been wondering about those exact functions too but you've just got further! :)
I recently discovered Akira Kurosawa´s films, being a Sergio Leone fan (The Good, The Bad and the other man with no name films were adapted from Akira's samurai films). I plan to watch them all.
@@pr0jectSkyneT Still should watch Yojimbo though. He probably wouldn't think anyone could be more badass than Clint Eastwood before seeing Mifune's original ronin version of the character.
I knew Star Wars reminded me of Asian culture with the force and stuff and that samurai and cowboys go hand and hand but damn I didn't know Star Wars was THAT linked to it.
How? How do I know STAR WARS inside out, know it's heavily influenced by THE HIDDEN FORTRESS (which I've seen), and not notice the HIDDEN FORTRESS shoutout during the force choke?!
I've never seen Seven Samurai. I know that Kurosawa and Japanese Samurai movies influenced The Magnificent Seven and Star Wars. But I didn't see the original. On this coming Saturday, I have to go to rental video shop and see it.
Parker Krakowiak In Japan, small rental video shops were weeded out, too. But big rental shops exist like Tutaya and Geo. Each city has a franchise. They also sell CDs, TV games, gamimg machines and so on. So we can rent DVDs and music CDs.^^
+Kira Kalinina Stormtroopers got their name from German Infantry known as Sturmmann (translated literally as Storm Man, but usually translated as Stormtrooper). A lot of themes of the Galactic Empire were inspired by Nazi Germany: from Palpatine's rise to power, how it's organized, the racism (or speciesism in terms of Star Wars), and their clothing. Really, Star Wars has a little bit of everything.
The plot of the seven samurai is the same as the Chinese classic epic novel "Water Margin". That is not the original story (the process of collecting heroes, Character setting, the number of heroes, etc.), and Chinese classics are widely used in Asia. And The heroic worldview is taken from the American Western.
This was a great video and wonderfully informative. The one issue I had with any of it was the line that "silent films were still popular at the time in Japan" The only date reference we had was 1910, and considering the first talkie (The Jazz Singer) did not come out until 1929, I do not see how any other form of movie would be possible to be popular during his formative years.
This was awesome! Did you know that Quentin Tarantino did the same? I mean, he watched westerns and samurais movies instead of going to a film school, it would be great if you do a video about that! :D
Great job of getting all that in to eight minutes. Would also love to see one about Sergio Leone and how he took Samurai films and used them to reinvent the American Western Film.
@Raidon Sub yup, the producer of The Magnificent Seven (1960), Walter Mirisch bought the rights from Japan's Toho Studios to make an Old West-style remake of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.
The setting and motifs of the seven samurai were taken from the Chinese classic epic novel "Water Margin". And The heroic worldview is taken from the American Western.
That Seven Samurai is a movie based on the Chinese clssic 'Water Margi', Western genre Heroism Theme. Chinese Classic novel is a very popular in Japan and korea. When East Asians watch this movie, they all think of 'Water Margi'. Not only because he is a great director, but because he knows Asian literature. In Seven Samurai, Kurosawa quotes from an important book: Water Margin. Water Margin has influenced Asian thinking throughout the centuries. As a matter of fact, there is a part where a teacher organizes seven volunteers. (Story composition and plot, character setting, motif) Obviously, an influence on Seven Samurai.
I remember my uncle mentioning a connection between Kurosawa’s work and Star Wars when he first introduced me to Seven Samurai and half a dozen other Kurosawa films. I was a teenager then, 14 maybe. This is the first time I’ve seen the connections and influence explained, over 20 years later. I was a big fan of Kurosawa’s work immediately.
Great video! However, I couldn't help to wonder why you only mentioned three of the great Japanese directors. There is no doubt Kurosawa was the greatest by any definition of the word, with Ozu coming in second and Mizoguchi third, but there is a fourth Japanese director who helped shape japanese cinema during the late 50s and 60s; Masaki Kobayashi. I'd say 'Harakiri' is at least worth mentioning! Thank you for your video. Take care! Cheers
TrevRockOne Well yes you're right, that's somewhat true. However, his Ningen no Joken trilogy came out in '59 (only one year after Hidden Fortress). After that he made Harakiri in '62, Kwaidan in '64 and his last masterpiece Samurai Rebellion in '67. I see that these films certainly wasn't as influential as Kurosawa's or Ozu's but they are in the same league as Mizoguchi's. I mean, Ugetsu is a superb film but not any more important than, say, Harakiri.
+Alec Eklöw I agree with Trev. It's more about time period. It's like, to use astronauts as an example, comparing Neil Armstrong with Alan Shepard. Shepard, as part of the Mercury Seven, deserves to be mentioned as a pioneer in the American Space Program as opposed to Armstrong, who was of the second team or "New Nine".
I saw Star Wars long before any Samurai films.... and now, every time I see a Samurai film, I see Star Wars... I am not a Star Wars fan at all, but I see how much was taken from Kurasawa.... which just shows how much these films are great
"Akira also watches silent films. You see at the time, silent films were still popular in Japan." Well, considering it's 1910, I'd say silent films are popular all over the world because talkies hadn't come around yet... seriously, how'd they goof that up here? If they meant he was watching silent films after 1927, they should have been more specific.
You should watch Mobile Suit Gundam Universal Century shows. That anime is the mixture of Star Wars and Star Troopers. But I got warn you, it might look a children’s show, but it’s really dark in a Newtype sense. For starters, child soldiers do get killed and very brutally. And there’s genocides (colony drops, gas “chambers”) at the most detail, the detail that George Lucas won’t do illustrated with his Death Stars.
@@whathell6t A little trivia, Gundam is aged up in its themes because it's actually critiquing Star Wars and calling out George Lucas for glorifying war. At the same time, it's deconstructing Starship Troopers' message about just war theory.
I knew like half of the Kurosawa stuff mentioned in this video that inspired George. Didn't know about the Jidai-Geki connection (never heard of Jidai-Geki until now). Although, I have heard interviews in regards to Yoda's origin. George just envisioned him to be the mystical rabbit that they pick up by the side of the road. He gave notes to Stuart Freeborn to make him a gnome like creature, Stuart then modeled him as a cross between himself and Einstein.
I remember being mildly shocked when Kurosawa was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1990, presented by Lucas and Spielberg. Not because I thought he didn't deserve it but he was the tallest among the three. As a Japanese, I was not used to see one of my compatriots towering over two Americans. lol
legend says it also might come from Djedi (also Dedi or Djedi of Djed-Sneferu an egyptian fictional ancient magitian). i have yet to confirm, but only lucas knows.
This video was marvelously done! The animation/artwork was great, the concept even better. Even though I knew some of the things having to deal with Japanese cinema, I still found it very informative. Definitely make this into a series, I'd love to see more.
I want more of this kind of film education material. Also, the speaker/narrator sounds authoritative while still being interesting and adding jokes that don't sound painfully corny, which is so welcome. Good job on this.
8 лет назад
Nice video! Thanks for doing this. I knew there was some huge samurai movie influence, but I never took the time to compare and see. This really resumed it well. Thanks!
I watched Seven Samurai years ago because several people had been telling me about the inspiration for Star Wars, but I completely failed to see the parallels. Thanks for making the connections and context just that bit more clear for an obtuse bloke like me!
This is superb, I get how much planning and editing it takes to make this rather than yapping with Tin on-screen, but it is so much better (I have about two hours of footage to pare-down to two five minute videos... welp).
Very impresive Young Padawan... Thanks for putting this easy way. It is good to know how Lucas was inspired and how he took and mixed so well thngs to build Star Wars.
I actually knew about Lucas originating his ideas from Samurai films, but I didn't know about the name origin of "Jedi", nor the monopolizing of movie industries. Though, I don't really see why not since almost every big corporation tries to monopolize their system, because they're all greedy. And, if they weren't, then they wouldn't be owners of huge corporations. lol All in all, great video. Fun stuff to learn.
the biggest reason why not is that it prevented a competitive film market, because say WB owned AMC, then AMC would only ever show WB movies, if there's only an AMC in your town, then you'll never see anything else and that's not cool. Hence the lawsuit. Interestingly though, it's kind of come back these days.
CineFix It doesn't seem that way to me. Everytime I watch a movie, I'm treated to a whole series of signs telling me, "A FILM BY... IN CONJUNCTION WITH... AMINMATION BY... or CGI by... "etc. It seems like there's sometimes up to eight different companies involved with shooting one movie. How is that becoming a monopoly?
Bass-Man In the past, that 8 different companies were owned by a single corporation. That is to say, the sole company controls what they produce and if the theatre in your vicinity only shows movies from WB, you'll only get to see stuff decided and released by WB. If WB decides to boycott sci-fi films, you would probably never get to see any sci-fi in your life. Assuming the Internet was not prevalent.
Bass-Man full on monopoly isn't returning (sort of, i mean, GE, TW, Viacom, Disney, Newscorp, and CBS pretty much own everything) but in a lot of ways vertical integration is. Many of the big distributors/theater chains are subsidiary companies of the same corps that own the studios, which is one of the many reasons you don't see a lot of indie movies in the box office (not the only, it's a lot more complicated than that)... there's structural similarities, which will have some consequences, we'll see... hence the kind of lol
After 'Return of the Jedi' Star Wars should have kept with Samurai tradition and committed seppuku before being completely dishonored for making those completely abysmal shit films that followed...
Knew Lucas garnered his inspirartion from Kurasawa and that (Criterion have a video on YT of him explaining his love for Kurasawa) but that was just the tip, this was amazing. You should make more : )
''The Magnificent Seven'' is a licensed remake of ''Seven Samurai'', while ''A fistful of dollars'' is an unauthorized remake of ''Yojimbo''. Sergio Leone was an a-hole, thinking he could get away with it. Kurosawa sued him and they settled out of court. PS: and ''Last Man Standing'', starring Bruce Willis, is a licensed remake of ''Yojimbo''.
This Channel is great, I simply love It. Nevertheless, I don't agree about the fact that Yoda is based on Takashi Shimura's role in 7 Samurai, but rather on Bokuzen Hidari's character in "The Lower Depths" (1957).
Having watched a lot of Kurosawa I never realised the similarities were this close, I noticed a few plot similarities and design similarities but nothing really struck me as hugely similar, but this was rather insightful.
I freakin' subscribed. I love cinema with all my heart, and funny thing is that I already knew almost every note, but it was so good to see somebody else say it! Like an awesome conversation between fans of an art!
Good video. I already knew most of the Japan stuff, but I took a class on Japanese film so that's to be expected. Benshi, the narrators from the silent film era, came from the Japanese theatre tradition of Bunraku, Kabuki, and Noh, which all featured a narrator who gave background exposition in addition to voicing all the characters. Also, no offense, because this is a good video, but your pronunciation of Japanese names is kind of terrible.
AHA! I always knew the Cantina scene where Obi-Wan cuts the guys arm off was shot differently than Lucas would usually do something. It has a lot of closeups and spastic edits, and now I know why it isn't like him. He fuckin stole it!
Cool! I'm a comic reader and a big fan if Jack Kirby and I read somewhere that his DC saga Fourth World was a huge inspiration for Star Wars as well. Can' remember much, but apart from other things, the protagonist is the good guy and is the son of the bad guy, much like Darth Vader, except his name is Darkseid (pronounced Dark Side!).
First of all, I love this. Wondering if the first date (1910) should be changed? Makes it sound like Akira was seeing American Westerns in 1910 but Akira was BORN in 1910, and John Ford didn't start making films till at least 1917 (though westerns did exist before that time), so it seems weird that Akira's dad took him to American Westerns in 1910. No?
Yeah, we see now how that can be confusing! but we're glad you still saw what we meant (clearly he wasn't 1 year old when his dad was taking him to the movies lol) Can't change it now, but Great note for future eps!!! Thanks Tim!
that was one of the most well done tellings of real events through story telling and drawings I have seen great video love the film school videos, I love watching some off the best films out their I will have to try and pick up some of Akira (I not gonna try and spell his second name to be honest I don't know if I spelt his first name wright) films at some point
YES YES YES. Finally Cinefix is back with some more information on cinema :) Little by little filling the vacuum that the badass digest video format have left in my heart. Thanks cinefix. AND YOU GUYS THUMB THIS THE FUCK UP SO WE CAN GET A GREAT SHOW AROUND HERE... I will be very thankful.
Battle Royale was taken from Stephen King's Long Walk. The plot of the seven samurai is the same as the Chinese classic epic novel "Water Margin". That is not the original story (the process of collecting heroes, Character setting, many heroes, etc.), and Chinese classics are widely used in Asia. And The heroic worldview is taken from the American Western.
Oh yes this is all well and good and obvious to some people thank you ,but maybe a mention of the " Flash Gordon " series also would have been enlightening to those interested in the origins of George Lucas and his Mediocre " Star Bores " films
I knew that from the book of movie and the Museum at Ottawa. The thing what I am looking is, what other Japanese movies did inspire Lucas than Seven samurai, Throne of blood and 47 Ronin. Thanks
Wow really liking this channel! It's great for movie obsessives like me. One of the best on RU-vid! Keep it up. I'll be sure to keep liking your videos.
