Three Outlaw Samurai (1964)
Hideo Gosha's 1964 directorial debut. Three masterless samurai aid peasant uprising.
Genre: Samurai
Blades, honor codes, and the masters from Kurosawa onward. Samurai film reviews covering the classics and the genre they exported to the whole world.
Foreign Movies
Foreign Movies
AdventureThe Hidden Fortress (1958)
Kurosawa's 1958 medieval adventure. Mifune as general, two bumbling peasants.
Foreign MoviesThe Sword of Doom (1966)
Kihachi Okamoto's 1966 nihilist samurai film. Tatsuya Nakadai as soulless killer.
Foreign MoviesLone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972)
Kenji Misumi's 1972 first Lone Wolf film. The film depicts disgraced shogunate executioner Ogami Itto and his infant son Daigoro wandering Edo-period Japan after the Yagyu clan has destroyed Itto's wife and falsely accused him of treason.
DramaThe Twilight Samurai (2002)
Yoji Yamada's 2002 late-Edo samurai drama. Hiroyuki Sanada as widowed petty officer.
Foreign MoviesYojimbo (1961)
Kurosawa's 1961 samurai-noir. Mifune as the masterless ronin who plays two factions against each other.
epicRan (1985)
Kurosawa's 1985 King Lear in feudal Japan. Three-hour battle epic with armies of 1,400 extras.
Foreign MoviesThrone of Blood (1957)
Kurosawa's 1957 Macbeth set in feudal Japan. The arrow finale is among the most committed practical-effects sequences ever filmed.
Foreign MoviesHarakiri (1962)
Kobayashi's 1962 anti-samurai film. The most ruthless dismantling of bushido ever committed to film.
Foreign Movies13 Assassins (2010)
Takashi Miike's 2010 samurai siege film. Pairs with Seven Samurai as the modern remake the genre needed.