Influence On Western Cinema
A number of western movies have re-told the samurai movie in a Western context. Italian director Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars and Walter Hill's Last Man Standing are both remakes of Yojimbo. Clint Eastwood's "man with no name character" was modeled to some degree on Mifune's wandering ronin character that appeared in so many of his films. The Hidden Fortress influenced George Lucas when he made Star Wars. Seven Samurai has been remade as a Western and a science fiction context film, The Magnificent Seven and Battle Beyond the Stars. Other samurai influenced western movies include Charles Bronson and ToshirÅ Mifune in Red Sun (1971), David Mamet's Ronin (with Jean Reno and Robert De Niro), Six-String Samurai (1998) and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999). The Zatoichi character was re-made as Blind Fury in the United States, starring Rutger Hauer as a blind swordsman living in the modern US. Most recently, The Last Samurai, the story being loosely based on the true historical French officer Jules Brunet assisting Japanese samurai in rebellion against the Emperor.
Read more about this topic: Samurai Films
Famous quotes containing the words influence, western and/or cinema:
“Just what is the civil law? What neither influence can affect, nor power break, nor money corrupt: were it to be suppressed or even merely ignored or inadequately observed, no one would feel safe about anything, whether his own possessions, the inheritance he expects from his father, or the bequests he makes to his children.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our peace and safety, which all the great powers habitually observe and enforce in matters affecting them, that a shorter water way between our eastern and western seaboards should be dominated by any European government, that we may confidently expect that such a purpose will not be entertained by any friendly power.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Strangers used to gather together at the cinema and sit together in the dark, like Ancient Greeks participating in the mysteries, dreaming the same dream in unison.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)