Legend of the Eight Samurai

              
Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Year: 1983
Rating: 7.5
What a fun blast this turned out to be. I have had this on my shelf for what must be 20 years now and finally decided to watch it tonight. No idea why I waited so long. Hell, it is directed by the legendary Kinji Fukasaku who smacked every film genre in the mouth during his long career - yakuza, sci-fi, samurai, war not to mention Battle Royale which falls outside any genre. And in the cast are three of Japan's biggest action stars - Sonny Chiba, Hiroyuki Sanada and Shihomi Etsuko (Sue). Yet I have to admit it was cutie pie Hiroko Yakushimaru being in it that made me finally get to it - having just watched her in Detective Story. Having starred in three hits in a row for Kadokawa, the studio upped the ante, budget and ambition of this her next film. It is not quite epic sized but approaches it. A huge cast, great big sets, special effects and an expansive narrative story; it runs for over two hours and could have gone on much longer for me. There are a number of background stories of characters within that I would have liked to have seen fleshed out.



It is a samurai fantasy adventure film with giant snakes and centipedes, demons, baths in a large pool of blood, romance, heroism and sacrifice, action and a Princess who needs protecting. It seems to draw equally from Kurosawa, George Lucas and King Arthur. If it wasn't made years before it, I might have thrown in Lord of the Rings as well. It was a huge commercial hit in Japan. There is an English dubbed version out there. I would suggest avoiding it and looking for the Japanese version.



It has a complicated back story that Tadamoto (Chiba) explains at one point but don't expect me to remember it. But the gist of it is that 100 years ago the Satomi clan drove out the evil Hitaka clan and claimed the castle and the land. When they did that the mother and son were killed. Now 100 years later they are back like bad pennies - both the mother and son - but who are now demons in human form who kiss one another passionately and keep young with those baths in blood and the skin of noble Princesses. They re-take the castle and put the entire Satomi clan to death with the exception of Princess Satomi (our girl Hiroko) who escapes with the help of two servants. She runs into Shinbei (Sanada) a farm boy who went off to the wars to become a samurai but comes home empty handed. Once he finds out that there is a huge reward for her he goes after her but by then she has met up with two men, Tadamoto and his brother. Now this gets even more complicated. They were born with an illuminated crystal ball in their hand and were given the duty of some day protecting the Princess when she needed it. But there are six more balls out there and they need all of them and the people to defeat the demons.



In the meantime the demons and their men are constantly after them. One of the balls belongs to an assassin who we meet as she interrupts a wedding ceremony by cutting off the head of the groom. That will generally do it. This is Keno (Etsuko). She has a few great scenes in the film. And looks fabulous. Slowly the eight are found and it is time to attack and save the Princess. There are a couple weak scenes in which pop American songs are played which may make you wince - what was Fukasaku thinking - the special effects are not unexpectedly primitive by today's standards - but in general it rolls along like a great adventure film with thrills and kills. I have not seen it but have been told that Fukasaku's scifi film Message from Space has basically the same plot. I mean why not.