Kill One or A Hundred, You Only Hang Once...

YOJIMBO-1961-In 1860 Japan a master-less samurai Sanjuro wonders the land. In a small town he meets a father and son fighting over the son's wanting to leave their farm and become a gambler. While getting a drink of water he hears the farmer's wife talking about how helpless children are. Then he's insulted by the farmer. In the main part of town people hide behind shutters and a dog wanders around with a human hand in it's mouth. An officer says he could be a bodyguard. Then he's surrounded by some bandits but nothing happens. When he stops for some food the old proprietor tells him about two warring gamblers, Seibei (who's backed by a silk merchant) and Ushi-Tora (who's backed by a sake brewer).The only successful resident seems to be the undertaker. “I'll think as I drink”. Sanjuro hatches a plan to get rid of all the bad guys. “Two coffins...no maybe three”. First he goes to Ushi Tora and kills two of his toughest men (“I've done everything bad”) and cuts off the arm of a third. 

Then he goes and offers his services to Seibei but refuses all offers until he gets what he wants. He also learns that Seibe (Seizaburo Kawazu who had a role in MOTHRA the same years), who's really a coward and his wife and son plan on killing him first chance they get. When the two gangs are assembled for a daylight fight Sanjuro quits Seibei and watches from above. Both gangs are hesitant and afraid to attack first. They flash their swords and yell while Sanjuro laughs. The would be skirmish is interrupted by the news of “an official visit”. Later Ushi-Tora's weird brother Unosuke (Tatusuya Nakadai; FACE OF ANOTHER) arrives with a gun and messes up a hostage exchange. After he saves a kidnapped woman and returns her to her husband and son Sanjuro gets mad when they thank him using words like “idiot” and “stupid” and saying “If you cry I'll kill you”. Later he's imprisoned by Unosuke and beaten up by a giant henchman but he manages to trick his guards and escape. While Ushi-Tora's men wipe out Seibei's gang, Sanjuro plots revenge. In a final showdown he kills everyone and meets someone he met EARLIER. 

 YOJIMBO despite it's serious and violent story line is full of funny wry comments by Mifune. For me this is Kurosawa Akira's greatest film and influenced Sergio Leone (“A Fistful of Dollars”) and many others. Mifune starred in SANJURO, a sequel by Kurosawa in 1962. 

Thanks for reading!

More Rambling....

JACK HUNTER AND THE LOST TREASURE OF UGARIT-2008-Ivan Sergei  portrays the title character a terrible Indiana Jones clone. It's full of bad acting and direction wrapped around an idiotic derivative plot. It was filmed in Turkey (I'll avoid the pun...). I've read it was actually some kind of mini-series (?). It was directed by Terry Cunningham (if he was related to Richie it might explain why he's allowed to direct movies but of course that can't be true...)....That leaves us with RED FACTION: ORIGINS-2011-more S.F. nonsense that takes place on the planet Mars in 2145. It's an un-fantastic allegory where the Martians have to fight to be free from the evil Earth force. Robert "I used to have a career" Patrick stars as a guy who led the revolution. Kate Vernon is "The Matriarch" (mostly appearing as a hologram) and there's a lot of black and white flashbacks. Hmmm..X-MEN: ORIGINS...RED FACTION: ORIGINS...I hope this isn't the start of something! The story is by Charles Band vet Danny Bilson. TV director Michael Nankin made it...
 I watched a good film recently too! DUEL ON GANRYU ISLAND, the third part of Hiroshi Inagaki's excellent "Samurai Trilogy" (1954-56) starring the great Toshiro Mifune as Musashi Miyamoto, a wandering misfit who becomes Japan's greatest "fencer". At the time Kurosawa was making some of the greatest movies of all time with Mifune (they collaborated on "The Seven Samurai" the same year as Part 1) but as Kurosawa worked exclusively in black and white at the time, all three of Inagaki's films are in color which really adds to the beauty of the story...THE KID WITH THE GOLDEN ARM is a 1979 Shaw Bros. production directed by Cheh Chang. It's chock full of violence, great fights and characters named Iron Feet, Golden Arms and Short Axe. It features the usual "Venoms" cast....I also saw two other martial arts movies recently THE REVENGER-(aka SHAOLIN REVENGER)-1980 and  KUNG-FU OF THE EIGHT DRUNKARDS but I'm sure everyone's tired of me writing about such things!

Thanks for reading!

RIP Robert W. Kaelin-1918-2014

Time Is Running Out

I have to go shovel snow so these will be very short!



SANJURO-1962-This is a sequel to Kurosawa's classic YOJIMBO (1961) but throws in some comedy between the swordplay. The always amazing Toshiro Mifune stars (he made CHUSHINGURA the same year). He helps some young clansmen against a corrupt "superintendent". It also feaures Tatsuya Nakadai and Takashi Shimura, the "Japanese John Carradine", a mainstay in the films of Kurosawa (and Ishiro Honda).




TRAPPED-1949-Not bad film noir with Lloyd Bridges as a counterfeiter sprung from jail by The US Treasury Department. Barbara Payton is his girlfriend. John Hoyt is an undercover Treasury agent. Director Richard Fleischer went on to make huge Hollywood shit like MANDINGO, AMITTYVILLE-3D and CONAN THE DESTROYER. He also made two other "noirs" around this time: ARMOURED CAR ROBBERY and NARROW MARGIN.



THE WILD BEES-(Divoke' vcely)-(2001)-From the Czech Republic and a first time director (Bohdan Slama) comes this quirky sometimes bizarre look at a small town and it's unusual inhabitants (including a Micheal Jackson impersonator). Everyone has a story and a lot of drinking goes on (suposedly the cast drank heavily during production!). Interesting.....





T.R.Y.-2003-Ok China/Japan co-production features Ken Watanabe (right before THE LAST SAMURAI) as a renegade military officer involved in an illegal arms deal. Yuji Oda (from TOKYO LOVE STORY) is the hero. The director Kazuki Omori also made GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE (1989) and GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH.

Thanks for reading and HAPPY NEW YEAR!