alright, now I'm curious...
...who here has seen Inagaki's Chusingura? It's a brilliant chanbara flick - a true classic - and one of my favs.
There are actually several versions
Chusingura is based on a historic event. My kendo group made a pilgrimage to the shrine that honors the 47 Ronin in Japan.
Inagaki's Chusingura is epic and stars many of the leading chanbara actors of the period including Takashi Shimura and Mifune. Mifune's role is pivotal, but small. He's not one of the 47. Quite the opposite. It's a long film and convoluted, so it's hard to keep track of the characters, especially when several of them look similar. There are two love subplots and I had to see it a second time to get that straightened out. Now I don't know how many times I've seen it. It's mythic drama, and the action choreography is magnificent but you have to wait for it. The final siege is glorious.
There's an older B&W version of Chusingura that's awful. All the action is off screen, except one scene where this dog walks into shot for no apparent reason and the ronin kicks him out of shot. It's a shocking scene because the dog is tiny and kicked for real. It goes flying. It's even more shocking because the rest of the film is people talking at each other in long, almost Kubrick-like still portrait shots. It's painfully boring, especially if you're wanting to see some swordplay, since it never happens.