Why I Like Samurai Movies

When I first introduced this blog I began with the statement –

  “My Grandpa likes westerns and my friends like superhero flicks, but I have a subjective preference for chanbara or samurai movies and have since before I became aware of their existence. Something about the tall, solitary warrior grim faced but honorable has always appealed to me more than burly men in spandex or John Wayne ever could have.”

In that post I went on to confess that I had no level of understanding as to why I love samurai movies beyond the surface level concept of “I respond well to this genre.” As I’ve spent the hours watching a couple dozen Japanese sword fighting movies and writing about a number of them I’ve proceeded with two goals. First, I wanted to further educate myself on this corner of cinema, but more importantly I wanted to answer this question for myself: Why do I respond to these movies?

I might be closer to an answer, if only for having let the question marinate for a few months.

One could point to all kinds of reasons why people as a whole respond to the genre, but I think, at least for me, it boils down to movies as a form of escapism. Where a primary function of film is to take us away to a far away land on an adventure our boring little lives could never hope to live up to, the foreign approach of Japanese cinema represents a doubling down on that concept. Within the realm of vicarious experiences we can have with film, Samurai movies push the envelope even further in approaching the very idea of a feature film differently than the American movies I grew up with. It’s the one, two punch of getting an exciting action movie and a taste of a different culture at the same time that I think drew me in initially more than anything else.

This would explain why I haven’t responded as enthusiastically to the ‘60s samurai movies of wester influence. My primal appreciation for sword fights and cheesy violence are enough to keep me entertained, but I’ve never been as keen on, for example, the works of Akira Kurosawa or Hideo Gosha. In fact, I called out Gosha’s “The Sword of the Beast” as “too American for my tastes” in my latest review. This is in line with my newfound understand of my fondness for chanbara. I just don’t go to samurai cinema for John Wayne.

After all, it’s still the great movies within the samurai movie genre and not the great samurai movies that I find myself returning to. It’s not that old movies or chubby ninjas fighting for truth and justice make for a great movie on their own (as much as I love those things too), for me, it’s just a pretty interesting starting point.

By associating, I’ll still always love the standard samurai speech cadence and an overly-serious, mediocrely choreographed samurai duel, but it’s the idea of a new approach to blockbuster that interests me so.

Plus, actually watching obscure samurai movies from the 60’s is still hipster as fuck, and that’s a nice little bonus.