The Seven Samurai – Kyûzô the Swordsman
An evening pause: A short clip from one of the best films ever made, Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai (1954).
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
What’s possibly most amazing about this great film is that Hollywood was able to appropriate it skillfully to make a great western. That scene precedes the duel in “The Magnificent Seven” between James Coburn with a knife and an angry but stupid man with a gun. I love both movies, but this one requires great patience. Kurosawa took his time unfolding the tale, and when death strikes, as in this scene, it’s subtle as well as final.
Instead of remakes, they should do re-releases. At least in the case of movies like this one.
They do — you just have to keep an eye out for them. For example, in 2006, for the 50th anniversary, the movie was re-released at the L.A. Film Festival and did a limited national theatrical tour, including the AFI Silver theater in Silver Spring, Md. It included a new print and, more important, a brilliant new set of subtitles that deepened and intensified the story. I’m not sure, but I think you can view that version on the Criterion Blu-ray release.