Word: kurosawa
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Magnificent Seven. Blood and thunder in medieval Japan, masterfully directed by Akira Kurosawa, who made Rashomon (TIME...
...Magnificent Seven. Blood and thunder in medieval Japan, with overtones of agrarian allegory, masterfully directed by the man (Akira Kurosawa) who made Rashomon (TIME...
...Magnificent Seven (Toho; Columbia). Arms and the men have seldom been more stirringly sung than in this tale of bold emprise in old Nippon. In his latest film, Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon) has plucked the epic string. And though at times, in the usual Japanese fashion, some dismal flats and rather hysterical sharps can be heard, the lay of this Oriental minstrel has a martial thrum and fervor that should be readily understood even in those parts of the world that do not speak the story's language. Violence, as Kurosawa eloquently speaks it, is a universal language...
...image is shattering in its simple physical force. Again and again, Kurosawa sends a dark thrill through his audience with a touch of sensuous physical reality. A reflection of flames plays upon a young wife's cheek, explaining its softness. An old man speaks, and the spectator can clearly hear the slobber as it slides up and down his throat. Effective as it is, there is nevertheless something tiresome in all this sensuality. In The Magnificent Seven, as in Rashomon, Kurosawa has provided a feast of impressions, but has skimped on some of the more essential vitamins. The characters...
...deliberate and consistent enough to be accepted as a matter of style, presumably designed to the Japanese taste, yet U.S. moviegoers are likely to find much of it draggy. One long sequence is spoiled by a musical score that borrows freely from Ravel's Bolero, and Director Kurosawa, though obviously gifted, sometimes becomes self-consciously infatuated with the look of his own images. For all that, Rashomon is a novel, stimulating moviegoing experience, and a sure sign that U.S. film importers will be looking hard at Japanese pictures from...