Samurai Films

Samurai Films
Author: Roland Thorne
Publisher: Oldacastle Books
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2008-11-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1842434004

Samurai films are an intriguing combination of frenetic action sequences, moving personal drama, and philosophical observations on loyalty and violence, all set against the spectacular backdrop of pre-industrial Japan. References to samurai films are quite common in film literature, and many mainstream directors, from Hollywood and elsewhere, have been inspired and influenced by them—Lucas by Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, and the genre of spaghetti westerns by Kurosawa's Yojimbo. Want to see one of the major inspirations for Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films? Look no further than Toshiya Fujita's Lady Snowblood. The history of this unique Japanese genre, including its influence on world cinema is covered, as well as analysis of the key films that have defined the genre. Classics such as Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy are included, as well as more recent films, such as Shinobi, Aragami, and The Twilight Samurai.

The Samurai Film

The Samurai Film
Author: Alain Silver
Publisher: Overlook
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2005
Genre: Samurai films
ISBN: 9780715636626

Alain Silver deconstructs the key aspects of the Samurai film, from its focus on violence and death as a means of understanding life and the significance of swords and weaponry, to key elements and motifs such as hara-kiri, rebellion and nostalgia for Japan's feudal past.

Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves

Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves
Author: Patrick Galloway
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781880656938

The first popular survey of Japan's samurai film genre and its heroes.

Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa
Author: Eric San Juan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2018-12-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1538110903

The career of acclaimed filmmaker Akira Kurosawa spanned more than five decades, during which he directed more than thirty movies, many of them indisputable classics: Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo, among others. During the height of his creative output, Kurosawa became one of the most influential and well-known directors in the world, inspiring filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and movies such as The Magnificent Seven; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; and Star Wars. In Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, Eric San Juan provides a comprehensive yet accessible examination of the artist’s entire cinematic endeavors. From early films of the 1940s such as Sanshiro Sugata and No Regrets for Our Youth to Oscar winner Dersu Uzala—the author helps readers understand what makes Kurosawa’s work so powerful. Each discussion includes a brief synopsis of the film, an engaging analysis, and thoughtful insights into the film’s significance. All of Kurosawa’s works, from 1943 to 1993, are analyzed here, including the overlooked television documentary Song of the Horse, produced in 1970. In addition to more than twenty photos, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide provides rich discussions that will appeal to students of cinema as well as anyone who wants to learn more about Japan’s greatest director.

The Last Samurai

The Last Samurai
Author: Warner Brothers
Publisher: Liberty Street
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2003-11-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9781931933636

Already slated as one of the top movies of 2003, "The Last Samurai," starring Tom Cruise, will be released nationally on December 5, 2003. This book contains parts of the script, exclusive stills from the movie, and interviews from the actors, actresses, and the director.

Compound Cinematics

Compound Cinematics
Author: Shinobu Hashimoto
Publisher: Kodansha USA
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2015-03-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1939130581

Any list of Japan's greatest screenplay writers would feature Shinobu Hashimoto at or near the top. This memoir, focusing on his collaborations with Akira Kurosawa, a gifted scenarist in his own right, offers indispensable insider account for fans and students of the director's oeuvre and invaluable insights into the unique process that is writing for the screen. The vast majority of Kurosawa works were filmed from screenplays that the director co-wrote with a stable of stellar writers, many of whom he discovered himself with his sharp eye for all things cinematic. Among these was Hashimoto, who caught the filmmaker's attention with a script that eventually turned into Rashomon. Thus joining Team Kurosawa the debutant immediately went on to play an integral part in developing and writing two of the grandmaster's most impressive achievements, Ikiru and Seven Samurai.

Kurosawa

Kurosawa
Author: Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780822325192

This work will become not only the newly definitive study of Kurosawa, but will redefine the field of Japanese cinema studies, particularly as the field exists in the west.

Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film

Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film
Author: William Van der Heide
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2002
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9789053565803

Annotation Elizabeth A. Kaye specializes in communications as part of her coaching and consulting practice. She has edited Requirements for Certification since the 2000-01 edition.

Film Noir Reader

Film Noir Reader
Author: Alain Silver
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1996
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780879101978

(Limelight). This bountiful anthology combines all the key early writings on film noir with many newer essays, including some published here for the first time. The collection is assembled by the editors of the Third Edition of Film Noir: An Enclyclopedic Reference to the American Style , now regarded as the standard work on the subject.

The Warrior's Camera

The Warrior's Camera
Author: Stephen Prince
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 444
Release: 1999-11-14
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780691010465

The Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa, who died at the age of 88, has been internationally acclaimed as a giant of world cinema. Rashomon, which won both the Venice Film Festival's grand prize and an Academy Award for best foreign-language film, helped ignite Western interest in the Japanese cinema. Seven Samurai and Yojimbo remain enormously popular both in Japan and abroad. In this newly revised and expanded edition of his study of Kurosawa's films, Stephen Prince provides two new chapters that examine Kurosawa's remaining films, placing him in the context of cinema history. Prince also discusses how Kurosawa furnished a template for some well-known Hollywood directors, including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas. Providing a new and comprehensive look at this master filmmaker, The Warrior's Camera probes the complex visual structure of Kurosawa's work. The book shows how Kurosawa attempted to symbolize on film a course of national development for post-war Japan, and it traces the ways that he tied his social visions to a dynamic system of visual and narrative forms. The author analyzes Kurosawa's entire career and places the films in context by drawing on the director's autobiography--a fascinating work that presents Kurosawa as a Kurosawa character and the story of his life as the kind of spiritual odyssey witnessed so often in his films. After examining the development of Kurosawa's visual style in his early work, The Warrior's Camera explains how he used this style in subsequent films to forge a politically committed model of filmmaking. It then demonstrates how the collapse of Kurosawa's efforts to participate as a filmmaker in the tasks of social reconstruction led to the very different cinematic style evident in his most recent films, works of pessimism that view the world as resistant to change.