According to USA Today, there has been a sudden resurgence of interest in samurai movies. That's pretty cool, but hard to believe. If more people wanted to read about samurai films, wouldn't my blog get more than 50 hits a day? I review those fuckers all the time!
Also, I just have a hard time believing that most Americans would get into classic samurai movies. Maybe stuff like Kill Bill, movies that integrate aspects of samurai films into recognizable, modern contexts, will become even more popular. Swordplay in movies definitely seems to be making a comeback. I mean, cinematic legend Joss Whedon thought to include them in Serenity, so you know they're hot right now.
But the old-school samurai films I've been enjoyed a lot lately, thanks to the American Cinematheque's awesome Japanese Outlaw Masters series (not discussed in the article for no good reason) and Laser Blazer's impressive collection of Japanese films for rental, are probably too deliberately paced and tied to Japanese culture for mass audiences here in the States.
I don't want to sound like a snot or anything, and I'd love to be proven wrong on this point, but we are talking about a nation that collectively has embraced The Rock, Paul Walker and Zach Braff as film stars. We're talking about a crop of young people who consider Paris Hilton to be the voice for their generation. Asking them to open their minds to the subtle nuances of Inagaki's Samurai trilogy may be aiming a bit high. The average American lacks the attention span to enjoy the Back to the Future trilogy.
Really, the whole article is an excuse to plug Criterion's admittedly awesome quartet of 60's samurai films on DVD. I wanted to review some for you all this week, particularly Hideo Gosha's Sword of the Beast and the famed Samurai Rebellion, starring Toshiro Mifune. But I haven't gotten a chance to rent them yet. Look for a review in the coming weeks.
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