Samurai Movies

[Shad]

Fuurin Kazan (Samurai banners)
Not a movie. Historical Drama about Yamamoto Kansuke a military strategist serving Takeda.

http://www.dramacrazy.net/japanese-drama/fuurin-kazan/

[LuluSteve98]

Thanks for sharing wonderful collection of movies.

[Anjin-San]

I wanna thank you guys as well. So far, my absolute favorites are Love and Honor and Twilight Samurai. And I love the main actor in the Akira Kurosawa movies, he's f-ing epic. *googling his name* Toshirô Mifune, he's always such a funny badass.

[redxavier]

Fuurin Kazan (Samurai banners)
Not a movie. Historical Drama about Yamamoto Kansuke a military strategist serving Takeda.

http://www.dramacrazy.net/japanese-drama/fuurin-kazan/

There's a fantastic movie called Samurai Banners (1969), starring Toshiro Mifune as Kansuke. It's the perfect companion piece to Heaven and Earth as it features Takeda Shingen as the protagonist and covers a few of the Kawanakajima battles from the Takeda perspective (H&E shows it primarily from the Uesugi view).

Samurai Banners, Heaven and Earth and Kagemusha form the perfect background viewing when playing Shogun 2. They're all historical, and all involve the actual Sengoku Jidai period (unlike the vast majority of Samurai movies which take place during the Tokugawa Shogunate). SB and H&E even include a few spectacular battles.

Other good Samurai movies are:

13 Assassins (1963) - I prefer this original to the recent remake
11 Samurai (1966) - similar sort of story to the 13 Assassins
Sword of Doom (1966) - another great one from Tatsuya Nakadai with him as a swordsman killing just about everyone he comes across

And for fun, G.I. Samurai!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTb0XGhuXmU

[Garensterz]

Guys, I highly recommend to watch The Admiral:Roaring Currents(2014).

[Diocle]

I've found this interesting movie:

"Tales Of The Taira Clan (Shin Heike Monogatari)"



Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, 1955. 108 min. 16 mm. Color.
In Japanese, with English subtitles.
Cast: Narutoshi Hayashi, Raizô Ichikawa, Tatsuya Ishiguro, Michiyo Kogure, Yoshiko Kuga, Akitake Kôno, Tamao Nakamura, Shunji Natsume, Ichijirô Oya,
Mitsusaburô Ramon, Kunitarô Sawamura, Koreya Senda, Eitarô Shindô, Ichirô Sugai, Eijirô Yanagi.



A brief review from the site Asia Society:

This lavish, sweeping, historical epic is set at the end of the 12th century, when a long period of peace was disrupted by several wars for control of Japan. The film is centered around Kiyomori Taira (Raizo Ichikawa), an ambitious warrior who fights alongside other members of his clan to overcome the Minamoto clan and their bid for power. Conflict erupts as the puppet Emperor and insurgent Buddhist monks take sides in the power struggle. Epic action and emotional potency are equally relevant in the themes of class, injustice and family legacies which run throughout the film.

Side note 1: I downloaded the full movie (7 parts) from youtube before it was removed , today on youtube it survives only the seventh part, if you are interested search for "Tales of the Taira Clan (1955)".

Side note 2: What makes it a very interesting subject it's that there are not many movies about the XII century Japan and the WONDERFUL Tale of the Heike, so the movie deserves some interest, I suppose; also interesting it's the fact that the movie was produced in 1955, that is, in a different cultural milieu compared to Japan today, so, it may be of some interest observing the different approach to Tradition, before the last 50 years of intensive and extensive Amerikanization of the Japanese society (VAE VICTIS), to quote Hiraoka Kimitake (Mishima Yukio): “Dreams, memories, the sacred--they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles.”

Side note 3: there is also a torrent download page where you can download or watch the movie online.