As some of you devoted reader of my so-called reviews had observed in my previous posts. Approximately last-month, i had bought several (10 to be exact) movies which directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Akira Kurosawa was regarded as the "Sensei of Cinema". Many great directors had named him among their influences such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, John Woo. But, however great he was, i've got to admit that i've never known him before i decided to be more than just a movie-viewer just about two-years ago.
It began when in one faithfulday, a friend of mine ask me to accompanied him to the game-store. And while he was enjoying himself at the store and left me particularly on my own, i went to look around to see if something might caught my interest. And there it was, right in front of the store was a DVD-booth. With no particular interest in mind, i browse the booth's collection and finally came up with an old movie titled "Seven Samurai".
Now at the time, i've heard, i've known, and i've seen that one of the Hollywood's movie entitled "The Magnificent Seven" was lously based on the movie. And at the time, that was the only reason of why i choose the DVD to bought. I've no clue whatsoever (at the time) of who is this Akira Kurosawa was whose judging by the way his name appears in the DVD-box was a man with significance importance in accordance to the movie itself.
So it marked my self-introductory to Akira Kurosawa. None of my friend had recommended me his movies. I simply stumbled upon that "Seven Samurai" and admiring it as the work of a true deep-insightful movie-maker. I mean, just look how he portrayed the chemistry between the ronins and the villagers, how he portrayed the final showdown between the bandits and the ronins amidst of heavy rain. It may not much comparing to the special computer generated effects that over populated the screen nowadays. But one thing was true, one thing was alive, that the emotion was intact, as a mere audience i could feel the way those ronin stood there protecting something which is may not important to them, but merely they stood for what they believed (pretty much like the hair-cutting scene in more recent "The Last Samurai" starred by Tom Cruise which in my opinion the only scene memorable from the film). It's the emotion that kept this movie alive and subsequently (as i later observed) had made the movie become (albeit argueably) one of the greatest Kurosawa's film.
Kurosawa himself had directed 30 movie-titles, and of that 30, adding to the 10 titles i just bought would leave me with 11 titles of Kurosawa's films that i had been appreciated.
I've seen one of the 10 film i mentioned earlier (titled "Dersu Uzala", a 1975 joint-production with Russia and won the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language film) but i won't wrote the review yet as i wanted to compare this film with his other works as also i would like to learn what his characteristics are in making film so i could understand more the spirit he wove among the thread of selulloid.