Yojimbo

This blog always thought samurai movies were at the, er, cutting edge (well, really, the subtext of this article is anything quasi-Japanese-inflected and swordish), but this blog also seriously wonders how you can write a piece like this and not mention Akira Kurosawa? Samurai flicks always were a slice above the rest. ;-)       This blog should also speculate that all of this is really an enlarged interest in the tradition of swordplay on film more than it is, per se, an interest in the samurai themselves as film devices, figures, or tropes. I can't help but wonder if, in these times of advanced pyrotechnics in the real world, from car bombs to JDAMs, there's a current longing for the intimacy and instruction of blade-to-blade combat. Especially in a world bemoaning terrorism and a surplus of 'democracy' in the arena of killing, the idea that killing should be kept in the hands of the specialists rings a little more soundly. Or maybe people are rediscovering that swordplay is just infinitely cooler (and more cinematic) than random, flashy explosions and endless discharges of bullets.       See also this piece from Japan Today, a sharp rebuke to the ridiculous imperiousness of The Last Samurai. Of course it takes an American to teach samurai about what it means to be samurai. Only an American can teach us who we really are. *smacks head very, very hard* This blog would like to offer its sincerest apologies to the ghost of Toshiro Mifune. Tatsuya Nakadai, where are you?