How could you leave out Heaven and Earth (1990 film)? Some of the best 1v1 and army battles with Samurai. Here is the link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ex-h3f2peqE.html
He’s one of the few directors that made movies into art. Real art that could change the world. Sadly movie makers stopped making art because they’re more interested in changing the world. They fail to realize only real art can do that.
I disagree. I don't know why when it comes to Japan everyone fetishizes eveything and exaggerates it to all absurdity. Yes, they are good films but they are not that great. There are literally thousands that came before that are much better. And this applies to eveything from Japan. Up until the 20th century the Japanese were worse than the Nazi, for centuries. They murdered millions. Even today they are super racist and xenophobic. Japanese culture is cold and unfriendly. Japanese food is bland and boring. But for some reason there is a culture of ignoring real history, real cultural facts, and fetishizing the Japanese as some sort of cute fictional "pandas" to be elevated above others. It's so absurd. There is nothing wrong with liking Japanese culture but the exaggeration, the lack of any criticism as if they are perfect, just the lack of common sense is ridiculous. And the way simp boys freak out when people like me speak the truth, is childish.
Mifune vs Nakadai in Samurai Rebellion is my favorite samurai duel ever - mostly because of insane psychological tension in the deadly battle between friends. And yes, Seven Samurai is the greatest samurai movie ever made... 70 years old, but so powerful and incredibly realistic like a documentary. Anfortunately this raw style is gone from cinema today.
You left out zatoichi. Love his series as the blind swordsman. Also you just have ito ogami as an honorable mention when in my opinion is the best samurai movies bar none.
How could you not include anything from Samurai 1, 2, or 3, the epic story of one of the most legendary samurai, Musashi Miyamoto? Tons of great fight scenes.
Thanks for this compilation. I remember watching a lot of samurai movies when I was in college back in the mid 70's. It brings back memories. A local art cinema used to have samurai marathons and show 4 or 5 movies back to back. I remember a number of the movies that you mention in this clip and others including Zato Ichi (the blind swordsman... I think some of those were from a Japanese TV series) and the strange "Baby Carriage in the Land of Demons". Obviously, I needed English subtitles to understand what was going on. But, because these were movies made for a Japanese audience it gave one some insights into Japanse attitudes, culture, and mindset. I thought Toshiro Mifune was great.
Indeed Zatoichi! We're contemporaries in that regard. I spent hours and hours over days and days at Bleecker St. Cinema's Zatoichi marathon back then! Now Kurosawa and, Rashomon in particular. It is a tour de force of Japanese surrealist cinema, made even more surreal when seen in another language with subtitles! To clarify: My father was living in Mexico City when it came out in 1950, he was fluent in Spanish so, subtitles were not a problem, yet even then, Rashomon was convoluted enough that he still had problems figuring out "Who Done IT?" Then my grandmother visited him along with two of his cousins who neither spoke nor read any Spanish at all. My grandmother could read Spanish competently but not fluently. My father warned them that this film was beyond comprehension perhaps even if you spoke Japanese and would be as indecipherable as a swamp in the dark for them. Interestingly enough, the three of them returned from seeing the film, with their own conclusions as to what it was about and, "Who Done IT?" and ALL were as divergent as you could imagine and yet ALL were equally valid. A testament to Kurosawa's GENIUS as a visual storyteller!!!
A good selection! Seven Samurai was my first introduction to Japanese cinema back in the early 90s and is definitely towards the top of my list. I currently own @25 dvds/Blu-ray’s of Kurosawa’s filmography and think he’s one of the greatest directors of all time. But I have to be honest, once I grew older, hopefully wiser, and started to appreciate subtext and meaning, Harakiri easily makes my top 5 favorite movies of all time regardless of sword fights. Don’t get me wrong, I love the action, but the messaging class systems, honor, hypocrisy, futility, etc, that Kobayashi filmed are just spot on and brilliant.
Your list is top tier. If I had some time I'm sure I could find others from over the years. And most would say best is subjective but yours are what I'd agree are "the" best. I grew up watching these movies on the weekends after cartoons were over.
Thought a version of "Zatoichi" would have made the cut. I think it was made in the 1980's by a renowned Japanese Director in the eponymous role. Solo swordsman taking on gangs, climatic fight etc. One of the best is in a Gambling Den where the blind Zatoichi is cheated & the croupier says, "What are you going to do about it, old man?" Easy.... in a trice he's cut off the croupier's arms just below both elbows & then sorts out the heavies. Ace Film.
Bravo! 7 Samurai by far the best! For me one moment always stands out. The lone Samurai Master, alone in the forest at the edge of a thin stream of water: The fluidity and grace of the way his sword flows from his scabbard as he unsheathes it, in the same way as water flows! It's a brief scene and Kurosawa only has him do this move two times in short order
I love the fight in the middle of Duel At Ichiogi Temple when Musashi is ambushed by a horde of men at night and defeats them by cleverly using the environment, like the rice paddies, so he just faces one at a time.
Couldn’t agree more that Seven Samurai is one of if not the greatest movies of all time. I realized everything you ever wanted to learn about life can be found in this masterpiece of a movie. Love, honor, courage, regret, sorrow, the list goes on. Duplicated many times but never even close to the original.
Maybe it's me, but the end of Sword of Doom is perfect, and not in the bs artsy way that The Sopranos ended. He had never faced an enemy more dangerous to himself than his own impulsive and immoderate self, let the world line up and try. The film reads to me like someone way too good at killing for his own good seeking limits and testing reality. We don't get to see the end, we should contemplate the journey.
It seems that you, the viewers of this RU-vid video, do not understand much about this performance. Since I am Japanese, I will explain it to you. This performance is not about the actor who cuts, but about the actor who is being cut. The actor on the receiving end of the cut is the one who is performing the "shield/ tate" act, and he trains himself to perform it daily. That is why the performance looks so powerful!
I've watched Ran. It's incredible, just a brilliant film. I've lost count of the amount of times I've watched The Seven Samurai. Cool vid my man. You know, I wouldn't call myself a Kurosawa fanboy, but I have watched more of his films than I realised.
Awesome list! Certainly can't argue with the top 5, but for my top 10 I think I'd have at least one Ichikawa Raizo flick in there. Probably the scene from Betrayal, where he straight up has to peel his fingers off his broken sword handle.
I've been watching Ninja and Samurai films since the late 1970s, as a boy, and only The Twilight Samurai and Ninja Scroll (early 1990s animation) strike my fancy. I think partly because I am a tragic romantic at heart. Pure fighting and killing are meaningless to me. Bad choreography only add to it. And, let's face it, movies envisioned, choreographed, and shot in the 1930s to 70s, could hardly be that realistically choreographed. It's mostly movies from the 1990s onward, with modern techniques and technologies, plus first rate directors, that movie choreography truly started to resemble or surpass reality (think of most Tom Cruise stunts: they are so real, they really surpassed reality, due to the multi million visual & audio technologies involved)... And, yes, NINJA SCROLL incorporated that exaggerated blood spurt from that early classic, SANJURO, 1962, BURST OF BLOOD to the very fullest... Both TWILIGHT SAMURAI and NINJA SCROLL, however, were about family and tragic star-crossed lovers, respectively... with violence and politics being mere backgrounds. Most Western audiences and commentators didn't understand the Twilight Samurai, so they kept saying it has to do with the guy/father/Samurai returning home late, during twilight hours. That had nothing to do with the actual title. The title really was about the two little, motherless girls --- as ELDERLY women (only seen briefly at the very last few seconds of the movies, when they went to see their beloved father's grave) --- paying homage to their father, a tragic Samurai living out the last days of a Japanese society in the process of transitioning from its rigid, feudal way into the modern era.... with the girls/elderly women loving telling the audiences what an odd, loving, & modern father theirs was, even though he was a true Samurai by heart.... In the old, rigid, & feudal days of Japan, no father, much less a Samurai, would love and care for two little daughters as much as their father here, the girls/elderly women conveyed to us, the viewers. Their loving step mother, TOMOE (this, we could only assume, since she came to care for the two little motherless girls, upon her return to her ancestral family) --- a tragic woman of her own, who also was their father's good childhood friend growing up in the same village, who was married off but who was returned to her family because she couldn't have children for her husband --- added to the bittersweetness of the time-era the Japanese were going through... Anyway, the two childhood friends (who were now starting to be more than friends, TOMOE and The Twilight Samurai, played by Hirioki Sanada, who also played in Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves latest movies) walking, each feeling the tragedies and disappointments in life, under a moonlit night, with snow falling... with an exquisite children's lullaby by the late organist Isao Tomita.... ... THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI truly was an exquisitely, cleverly written, acted, and directed film, with many different layers.... Very few films from Japan could beat it... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PChw2fw9d4w.html
Without a doubt you missed one of the greatest, Ame Agaru, "After The Rain". It was written by Kurosawa and directed by his former assistant director of 28 years, Takashi Koizumi, 5 years after Kurosawa's death.
The other name for this genre is “chanbara”, which refers to the sound of clashing blades. As Zatoichi and Lady Snowblood show, it doesn’t always focus on samurai, but does involve sword fights and often examines or questions the role of violence in society.
These are well selected films, some of my own favorites. One of my top films is "Tasogare Seibe". For me, this is one of the best films ever made, and the sword fights are the most realistic I've ever scene.
I’m glad you included seven samurai in the honorable mention. It is my #1 pick. It showed the true nature between a master and the lesser skilled yet arrogant .It’s the best martial arts movie of all time.
I had a handle somewhere 'Kyuzo' because of the scene and a later one where Kyuzo volunteers to go out by himself to get one the bandit's rifles. He tells the others "I will do it myself' and then, boom, there he goes.
Hitokiri /Goyokin / Samurai Fiction / immediately come to mind ....... if you're gonna nod in the honorable mentions to Lone Wolf and Cub you have to throw in some scenes form the oringinal Zatoichi series and personally I think there some strong scenes in Ichi the version played by the blind woman and a few excellent scenes from Kitano's The Blind Swordsman Zatoichi / there could be so many others to mention but it's all kind of a hopeless task as like with most "best of" lists one can always think of examples that don't "make it" as it's all so subjective.
We totally agree with your sentiment regarding the subjectivity of this topic. That’s why we always ask viewers to give their own list in the comments. What is your personal top 10? We would love to hear that
Beat Takeshi's Zatoichi IS BY FAR Zatoichi on CRACK!!! There will be NO other that comes close! Zatoichi is and will always be the grandest of ridiculous and fun cinema!
A nice list. I have seen most of the movies mentioned. However, in my opinion, you left out the best Samurai battle scene: Toshiro Mifune as Miyamoto Musashi in Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (1956). The final fight between Musashi and Kojiro Sasaki (Koji Tsuruta) should have been #1 (or at least tied with Seven Samurai's final battle).
Agreed, though the Musashi Trilogy is considered a TOP rank Japanese B-Movie genre series of films. Undeserving, yet can you imagine if Kurosawa had made them? Mifune IS Miyamotosan without debate! Ganryu is a classic. One: In the mythology, Musashi took an oar from the boat in which he traveled to the island and carved out a Katana with which he fought. Two: on taking to the beach as he'd delayed his arrival, the sun was behind him and then as they faced off, (this is murky because it's been decades since I read this) Three: his opponent, the master of the "Swan Cut?" was it, threw his scabbard to the ground and Musashi gave him an out saying, "You have already lost." As he'd been so cavalier and disrespectful as to throw his scabbard away. Four: His opponent engaged, and Musashi felled him in the first stroke, bringing his carved from an oar katana down upon his head crushing his skull.
Thank you so much! This is a truly inspired collection! I could think of other samurai battles, but I could not rank them above these! I have been a fan of samurai movies since Kurosawa's "Rashomon" in 1959 - your selection is impeccable!
Iv got a strange thing. When I watch a quality sword duel it makes me emotional and can even make me cry. Maybe I'm carrying severe trauma from a previous life that ended like that
You have set before yourself an impossible task, limiting the number to ten and having a single best. It means you completely left out Heaven and Earth as well as Chushingura and Twilight Samurai. Even a top ten list of Kurosawa Samurai Battles would have been a Herculean task!
Really well done list. My only disagreement is that I think the Sanjuro scene is a little too high on the list (despite my love for the movie). But I'm just stoked that you included it at all. Definitely agree that it's criminally underrated.
I watched my first samurai movie many many decades ago that gave me a deep impression on Japanese martial films. Two man were fighting and a little boy hug on the older man’s leg handicapping him. The old man seems not to be harming the boy. I think he was the kid’s granddad, and was fighting with the little boy’s father(his son-in-law), who was not taking advantage of his son’s attempt to stop the fighting. I have always wondered what the name of that film is.
Samurai Banners had some good ones! Im glad tou showed the og blood splut from Sanjuro. After seeing so many over the years (in cinema) its easy to forget that one. i remember Sanjuro being almost comedic at times? But it has been a long time since ive seen it. Then again , Hidden Fortress was damn funny at times!
@@greenjoseph4 Ah, quite right. Let's see.... Ran was King Lear....... You're right, Hidden Fortress was a stand-alone plot. I have a Library of 40,000+ movies, hard to remember ALL their plots off the top of my head.
I realize the doctor played by Mifune in Redbeard is not a samurai, but the fight vs the brothel regulars to save the sick girl is a masterpiece, as all of Kurosawas combat choreography is. Kurosawa isThe Master of his art.
I think the fight between Zatoichi and the Samurai in the snow in "Zatoichi Challenged" is the most stunning sword fight ive seen however i accept it may not be classed as a Samurai film....
I love the final scene in Throne of Blood. Just the drama and the fearful respect of the foot soldiers as they eventually corner and watch their lord and master Washizu make his last stand. And the shocking end to his life is the final stroke of magical genius that is Kurosawa.
In Seven Samurai the village was fenced off The leader of the bandits says 'You think your fences can keep us out?'' The samurai leader says ''They are designed to keep you in'' This was re played in A Bronx Tale biker scene when Chaz Palmanteri says to the bikers ''Now youz can't leave''
Personally I would like to recommend 'Samurai_Reincarnation' (Ma-kai Ten-show) 1981. Old actor Tomi-Saburo Wakayama showed a realistic hitting movements in his fights.
03. Harakiri "Seppuku" (1962) was remade in 2011 under the title "Ichimei" (One Life). The protagonist's villain is played by some of Japan's top actors, including Koji Yakusho, who won the Best Actor Award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Personally, I think the 2011 remake is a better work than the 1962 original. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--_KZPJu1iHw.html
13 Assassins only got honorable mention? I would have picked that over Ran, good as Ran is. The reason is the overall concept of the mission of the 13 and how they stood off the masses and the dedication to the samurai code.
Grew up in Hawaii going to see samurai films every Sunday. B&W, Sepia, Rose color...good bad and ugly movies. But there is one actor/character who only did about three films; a down on his luck, unkepmt, good fighter that always held his sword same as Zatoichi...but his trick was to wear bamboo arm bracers, that he used to deflect his opponent's sword and get the final stroke on his enemy. Anyone recognize that scenario?
Very good list. The rain of arrows at the end of "Throne of Blood" is quite something, as well. As it also is the astounding 40-minute-long battle at the end of "Beach of the War Gods"... Which videogame is the one at 0:46? It looks pretty cool.
Rurouni Kenshin is one of my favorite the story of a young assassin who wants to turn a chapter and live in peace but circumstances lead him to fight for the underdog and the nation - well this is my personal opinion. BTW Seven Samurai still is the "best":)
The only problem with this list is that as long as it's honest, it's bound to be heavily dominated by Kurosawa movies with Mifune. The fact that some other scenes made it onto the list is just because better Kurosawa/Mifune scenes were excluded in order to make the list more diverse. Although there are many great samurai movies and battle scenes that are not made by Kurosawa or includes Mifune, any true top 10 list will be completely filled by them before any others make it onto the list.
What do you mean "no proper conclusion" to Sword of Doom? The conclusion was crystal clear. Living in a nihilistic hell of his own making and doomed to die in lonely, self-hating despair.
