Legend of the Eight Samurai

Rating:
Summary: Ok for an oldie.
Review: (tech stuff first) For a mid-eighties kung fu flick, this movie's not bad. The special effects and costume designs appear to have had a decent budget, which really helped to create a fantasy atmosphere. The special effect resmbled Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain. The DVD quality is decent too, for an economy DVD company. The language version choices only include english dubbed. No subtitles.

(plot)This film is based on a Japanese story about the dog warriors. It's about a princess who is killed by her lover, when she is forced to marry her dog. She marries her dog because her father promises that the dog can have his daughter's hand in marriage if he brings back the head of his enemy.(wierd!)

Later 8 warriors are reborn with magic balls in their hands and join a new princess in her fight against a witch and her army of ghost warriors. This is where the movie essentially picks up the original stroy. The princess, and her eight samurai meet while on their quest to kill the witch queen and her dominions.(a little strange since the witch queen is alot cuter than the princess)

The plot is of epic proportions, but the character development was too shallow, and seemed rushed. The fight scenes could have been better too. THe 8 samurai seemed too skilled against their opponents most of the time.

The character development, and action sequences are what made me give this flim only three stars.

However, there is a anime seris called Hakkeden Legend of the Dog Warriors, which recently came out on DVD. I would strongly suggest you buy that series and watch it first. Legend of the Eight Samurai will make a lot more sense to you after viewing the anime version. I enjoyed Legend of the Eight Samurai after seeing the anime stroy. The characters backgrounds made more sense to me.

If you're going to buy this DVD, consider getting THe anime seires as well. It is also sold at Amazon.com. (After seeing both I would almost give Legend of the Eight Samurai 4 stars.)

Rating:
Summary: I'M QUITE DISSAPOINTED IN THIS MOVIE
Review: A PRINCESS AND 8 SAMURAIS BATTLE THE HIKIMA CLAN. THE MOVIE HAS SOME GOOD SWORDFIGHTS, BUT THE MOVIE'S ALSO TOO LONG, TOO SLOW MOVING AT TIMES, AND IT'S JUST A TRIAL TO SIT THROUGH AT TIMES!NOT TO MENTION, THE DUBBING IS HORRENDOUS. MARTIAL ARTS FANS SHOULD SKIP THIS ONE. THERE'S MUCH BETTER MOVIES OUT THERE THAN THIS.

Rating:
Summary: Suprisingly good fantasy epic
Review: Eight mysterious crystals from the body of a long dead princess now identify the eight samurai who are destined to help a beautiful young princess overcome a curse on her royal family. They are set against an evil queen who is immortal.

The queen and her son live in a castle assisted by two ghouls, first, a blind witch , and second, a snake charmer, and a legion of anonymous samurai. The eight samurai (called ninja in the film due to the popularity of ninja in the 80's) have individual skills that the princess will require to defeat the queen and the demon who gives the queen her power.

Borrowing greatly from Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Sonny Chiba's character relies on the earlier portrayal of Kambai. The story focuses however on the love story between the princess and one of her samurai, a very Kikuchyo-esqe farmer turned samurai who fights like a madman in the finale.

The photography is borderline excellent and especially vibrant. Swordfights are frequent and dazzling, most involve the samurai being vastly outnumbered. Choreography, although not up to modern standards, is adequate and exciting. Certain scenes are staged very well, including the brief fight in a garden with flowered trees where the wind blowing during the fight cause the petals to fall like snow.

Despite frequent location changes the story seems to flow rapidly and evenly except that the revenge story comes to a halt at a few points to build the Kikuchyo like eighth samurai character who becomes the love interest. This is the only part of the film that creates empathy for any of the characters, but since the acting can be described as hammy, and the dubbed translation drops most of the emotion from the acting, this part can get tedious.

Other notable flaws are poorly puppeted rubber creatures, some poorly voiced dubbing, and an intrusive 80's love song that plays during the "love story" part of the movie. Also, at one point it calls attention to an object that, because of the reduced size (TV format)isn't on screen. I normally don't mind standard screen size if it is edited properly, but this film deserves widescreen.

The movie as it has been released is a 3 star, If it were redubbed, the love song removed, and released in widescreen, it may deserve a 31/2 or 4 stars.

Rating:
Summary: bad quality
Review: foolish story, horrible quality, hilarius sets. I like it and own it. If you like cheesy movies, you might like this. It's like a fantasy/martial arts movie, that you would be embarrased of watching if someone came in and found you watching it.

Rating:
Summary: wonderful visuals butthe Japanese script was better
Review: I first saw this film in the original Japanese as "Satomi Hakenden." I was not disappointed in the visuals but I couldn't help cringing at the awful American "translation." They got the basic idea right but the language they chose took a powerful coming of age story and made it sound ridiculous. If you can't get the original, get this just for the visuals and play it with the sound turned down.

Rating:
Summary: wonderful visuals butthe Japanese script was better
Review: I first saw this film in the original Japanese as "Satomi Hakenden." I was not disappointed in the visuals but I couldn't help cringing at the awful American "translation." They got the basic idea right but the language they chose took a powerful coming of age story and made it sound ridiculous. If you can't get the original, get this just for the visuals and play it with the sound turned down.

Rating:
Summary: Legend of the 8 reasons not to buy this movie.
Review: If you are a real hard core Sonny Chiba Collector, then this is not worth your time, because he doesn't do really anything in this flick! Why is it not in widescreen? Why is there no original language track? This is DVD right? If you still want this movie to fill the gap in your Chiba collection try to find it in its original format & quality.

Rating:
Summary: Very silly
Review: Legend of the Eight Samurai is just as bad as you'd think it should be. The plot bounces around in a most confusing fashion, but who cares about what's going on, anyway? The word Samurai is interchanged with Ninja in this story. The cast includes such characters as The Princess, Necktie Ninja, pantsless Samurai, unloved lady ninja, Elvis Samurai, The Evil Queen, the old lady who tears her own face off, and a bevy of poisonous women. Throw in tentacles and glowing blue balls, and the MST3K-style jokes happen all on their own. For ease of comprehension, all you need to remember is that the way of the Samurai is death, and expect a final deathcount of Shakespearian proportions.

Rating:
Summary: Legend of the Eight Morons
Review: This film had all the makings of a Kung Fu classic. It definately has a style of an ancient Japanese legend, and the style and storytelling only add to that. However...its marred by several things.

One is character development. OK, so each of the eight samurai are different some how, that doesn't really help the fact that most of them we only get to know for about five minutes.

The second is development of the story. This thing drags on forever, and one reason being the princess - whom the Samurai are supposed to PROTECT - gets KIDNAPPED every other minute! I'm not kidding. She must get kidnapped or attacked four or five times in this movie, the last being by the main villainess who takes the princess back to her castle. Doh! Good one samurais! They're supposed to be the eight greatest in Japan, but the Planeteers are more competant than these guys!

The film also suffers from some corny moments, the biggest being at the end when the female assassin samurai is told by one of the bad guys she knew only in a five second fight before: "I have always loved you!" and dies. Before she dies, she clasps the wall and cries out: "I have never in my life been loved!" and then dies. And the audience, of course, is left thinking, "Where in the hell are these two related to each other?!"

Then there's the ending. The whole point of the Eight Samurai protecting the princess is so that her family bloodline can continue and her clan may flourish, but at the end of the movie the princess runs to the handsome, young samurai and declares: "I don't care about the clan, I just want to live with you!"

WHAT THE HELL?! Why didn't she do that at the beginning of the movie? What was the whole point of the two hours we just went through?!

So the film definately became a downer for me shortly after that moment. Its not a kung-fu classic and I wouldn't even suggest renting it. Wait until it comes on late at night on TBS or some thing, and then decide for yourself if you want to own a copy.