Oh, If only I was a 16th century Japanese man!

I love movies about marital arts, and/or East Asian war-lore. Samurai flics are some of my favorite. Akira Kurosawa is my homeboy.

I just finished watching Shintaro Katsu's 2004 Samurai picture, Zatoichi.

I was expecting little from it at first, but I mean, it's about a blind Samurai... C'mon! I had to get it! It turned out to be quite a surprise too, it was really enjoyable to watch. The special effects that replaced the gore were pretty poor for even 2004's standards, but it was easily disregarded in light of how awesome everything else was. The music was something else too... They used a lot of synthesizers, and simple percussion instruments. There were scenes were farmers in a field, at least 5 them, and all in different places, were striking and dragging they're farm equipment along the ground during their work; All in perfect synch with the music. It was intelligently done.

At the end there was even this really weird tap dancing scene, where everyone who didn't get sleyed during the movie danced around in celebration... It was like at the end of an Indian movie where they all do that silly ass dance(Ex. Slumdog Millionaire).

After this though I'm in dire need of the movie Yojimbo. I've yet to finish it. I'm real partial to the whole "Mysterious stranger", or "Man with no name" stock character movies too...

I'd buy Akira Kurosawa's work, but it's so damned expensive. Yojimbo, and Seven Samurai are regularly $50-$80.

Speaking of Yojimbo, Takashi Miike's 2008 spaghetti-western Sukiyaki Western Django is highly recommended, if you're a fan of either spaghetti-westerns, or Akira Kurasawa, or just shoot 'em up movies with swords. It's in collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, and is a definite hit among most cult-classic circles. It feels like they took Tarantino, Kurosawa, and the Cohen Brothers, and mixed them all together, then told them they had to make one movie out of two separate screenplays... One being a western movie, the other being a samurai movie; but they had to keep the story of each intact. It's madness.

Over them all though, I still have to say... Hero Starring Jet Li is still my favorite Martial Arts related movie. It's just incredible.

I's so sweaty and tired I can't think, let alone write.
So nighty-night.