Cheap Legend of the Eight Samurai (Dol) (Video) (Kinji Fukasaku) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Legend of the Eight Samurai (Dol)

Soft PG-13/Case-study for Carl Jung
First, this film has nothing to do with the Kurosawa classic that has one less Samurai. In the movie the band is referred to as ninjas, and I am not sure why they rendered the title differently. If they are trying to cash in on the famous movie, this makes sense in a Dilbert marketing sort of way. If they are trying to move away from the ninja image associated with 1980's movies and the turtles, forget about it--we've moved past it all. <
> <
>What impressed me about this movie was its ability to manage an intricate story with many characters, and still keep me riveted to the screen. Personally, I would have cut the eight down to three. As it is, some the ninjas seem to be numeric placeholders. If they had made the movie a half an hour longer, the could have fleshed out the people. However, since their individual back-stories are not essential to the plot, it is well they are not elaborated upon. <
> <
>Although the special effects seem hokey by 21st Century standards (and even by 1983 standards), I was able to look past them and saw what the effects were pointing to: a tale of family honor, revenge, magic (magia and goetia), and a brooding fate. <
> <
>It is this omnipresent (and omnivorous) fate that wrangles me the most. To Americans, fatalism has negative connotations. It implies that someone else is in control, and may not have our best interests at heart. And so much of Japanese religion is devoted to submissing to fate that it is distasteful. How do you really know if it is fate? And since we all have some cosmic doom hanging over us, is that why the Japanese spend so much psychological energy to beautify things? <
> <
>So I found the two incidents of redemption and fate-breaking a breath of clean air. Artistically, watching Shinbei move from a ne're-do-well Han Solo, to becoming a zombie-ghoul to becoming a hero for the rightwise born princess. My favorite charter is the no-name red Samurai who breaks from the Evil Witch's ranks, and goes over to Princess Shizuhime's raiders. <
> <
>I liked the glowstones. They are a common image, found in The Dark Crystal, the Silmarillion, the Lensmen, Kabbalah, and the Book of Mormon. Jung has a lot to say about stones and identities in "Man and His Symbols." Hint: the eight ninjas stone-bearers become stones at the end of the movie. <
> <
>One last note: Most Americans chuckle at the princess who had to marry a dog (reversing Elvis's lamentation), but Frazer points out that such thaumaturgic marriages were common in the ancient world ("The Golden Bough," Ch. XII). <
> <
>I would rate this movie PG-13, due to several scenes of graphic violence (a cheek being cut, and a beheading), and partial nudity (we see the backside of a woman emerging from a pool), which seems to have been edited to American sensibilities. As it stands, it is a soft PG-13.

What's Up with the Cover Photo!!???
Does anyone know why a scene of Toshiro Mifune as Musashi in "Samurai Trilogy" is on the cover of this DVD!??