OFF: That one obscure album.. Conan

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On mån 29 mar 1999 13.36 -0800 "Doug Pearson" <ceres at SIRIUS.COM> wrote:
> Carl successfully mentions the main areas of cross-fertilization between
> Japanese and American films, only failing to mention the most important
> name: Akira Kurosawa.  The man's films have influenced both American
> Westerns ('Seven Samurai' -> 'The Magnificent Seven') AND American sci-fi
> ('Hidden Fortress' -> 'Star Wars').  I look forward to seeing some battle
> set-piece sequences in the upcoming Star Wars movie influenced by
> Kurosawa's 'Ran' (which, in turn, borrows from 'King Lear', just as
> Kurosawa borrowed from other western influences that I can't name off the
> top of my head).  Not to mention that some of those Jedi knights portrayed
> in the preview look quite a bit like Samurai warriors ...

     Could not agree more.  Kurosawa is, for good or for ill,
the only live action Japanese film-maker I know very well--but
top notch? The man defined it (past tense, Kurosawa having died
relatively recently, and the film world being the poorer for it).
_Ran_ is a truly awesome film. _Rashomon Gate_ ...

     HK and Japan have a lot of damn fine motion picture
action going on.

     Personally, I worry about the heavy CGI in the new Star
Wars.  It doesn't look that good, except on the spaceships.
Those battle droids look dodgy. Ah well.

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic
St. John's College, University of Cambridge
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/