Word: samurais
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Tokyo is even cleaner and more utopian. Yet even as the Japanese version reproduces virtually every feature of its American models, it turns them into something entirely Japanese. Melvin, Buff and Max, the antlered commentators at the Country Bear Jamboree, speak in the grave basso profundos of Kurosawa samurai. Alice in Wonderland has Oriental features. Frontierland has been turned into Westernland ("The Japanese don't like frontiers," explains a park official), and Main Street has become the World Bazaar...
American-made jeeps still predominate, but Japanese variations are making inroads with a 23.1% share of the market in 1986 that is projected to reach 31.9% by the end of this year. The Suzuki Samurai, the best-selling Japanese "toy jeep," has scored a 110% increase in sales over 1986. Its basic list price is under $7,000, considerably less than the $10,600-to-$25,000 range for American models. (A word of caution: the rear seat is just one of some 50 options.) Sales Manager Tony Pacheco of Cerritos Suzuki in Los Angeles County explains the popularity...
...Japanese versions just do not have the oomph needed to haul his 3,000-lb. boat: "The Isuzu Trooper just couldn't pull it." Nor are the teeny trucks well suited to long-distance drives. Atlanta Salesman Stewart Powell, 25, describes a "miserable" 200-mile journey in his Samurai: "It's like driving a go-cart. On the highway the engine is really loud, and you feel like you're surrounded by tin." Then again, there is a downside to virtually all jeeps: four-wheel drive means lower gas mileage...
...Fujisawa Municipal Gymnasium (1982) exemplifies the impeccable craft of his best work since then. Like much Japanese architecture of the past 25 years, it has a sci-fi quality: one section of the building resembles some enormous otherworldly blimp, the other calls to mind a high-tech samurai helmet. But unlike the slicker gimmicky UFO architecture (Kurokawa's earlier work, for instance), Maki's gym is restrained and sober, a mature fantasy. The flawless, parabolic stainless-steel skin is 1.6 acres in size but just about one-sixtieth of an inch thick...
What is doubly remarkable about the movie is how Itami keeps the audience so interested in Tampopo's struggles. The director garnishes her rags-to-riches story with elements of samurai adventure and Sergio Leone western, and then has the actors play it straight. Amazingly, it's a satire that involves the audience in the action as much as the characters themselves. When the noodle senseis test her progress after a few weeks, one finds oneself as tense and nervous as if one were watching a shoot...