And the countdown continues in my quest to watch and find something inspiring in every single one of Yahoo’s 100 Movies to See Before You Die. Today, two Japanese films made four years apart by the same director (Akira Kurosawa) featuring the same character actor (Toshiro Mifune) …
Commoner: But is there anyone who’s really good? Maybe goodness is just make-believe.
Priest: What a frightening…
Commoner: Man just wants to forget the bad stuff, and believe in the made-up good stuff.
It’s easier that way.
In this flashback of a flashback, strangers caught in the rain tell the story of a murder from four different perspectives, but no one knows which is the truth. At the crux it is a story of the rape of a samurai’s wife by a wild-eyed bandit (that wily Toshiro), and the samurai later ends up dead. But is it really a rape? Is it really a murder? Are there really any good people on the planet? All open-ended questions, but be prepared to wax philosophical …
Kambei Shimada: This would not be a game. A band of forty bandits!
Two or three samurai could accomplish nothing.
Defense is harder than offense. Mountains in the back of the village?
Rikichi: Yes!
Kambei Shimada: Can horses get over them?
Rikichi: Yes!
Kambei Shimada: Fields in front. The village is wide open to horsemen … until the fields are flooded.
One guard for each direction takes four. Two more as a reserve. You’ll need at least … seven, including me.
This is hands down my favorite of these two movies. The story is simple: Villagers seek the protection of samurai when a gang of 40 bandits threatens to steal their harvest. But they find it difficult to procure warriors when they can only afford to pay them in rice. Eventually six samurai agree to the task, with Toshiro (not a real samurai and a loose cannon) as the seventh “samurai.” They engage the bandits in battle and the ending provides yet another opportunity for philosophy.
You may be wondering what I found inspiring. Well, Toshiro Mifune’s enthusiastic performances, that’s what! The man is obviously crazy in both movies, and according to Wikipedia it’s because he studied footage of lions in the wild to prepare for these animalistic roles. Talk about dedication — and some mighty fine method acting. We should all aspire to attack life’s roles with such gusto.
