Latest news with #Yojimbo
Epoch Times
11-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
‘Highest 2 Lowest': Spike Lee Remakes a Kurosawa Classic
Halfway through, 'Highest 2 Lowest' became riveting, but overall it's sporadically entertaining, often boring, sometimes engrossing, and sometimes rather silly. R | 2h 13m | Drama, Mystery, Thriller | 2025 Successfully remaking master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's films is always a tall order. However, the original 'Django' (a redo of 'Yojimbo') and 'The Magnificent Seven' ('Seven Samurai') show that it is possible to pull it off.
Epoch Times
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
‘Yojimbo': The Ronin Who Changed Cinema
NR | 1h 50m | Action, Drama, Thriller | 1961 Akira Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo' stands as a striking piece of black-and-white cinema depicting the samurai era. At first glance, the film unfolds like a straightforward tale, yet it subtly weaves in complexity through sharp wit and strategic mind games.
Daily Record
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
'Much darker forgotten' James Bond film ranks higher than Sean Connery favourite
The James Bond films - from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig - have been ranked by Rotten Tomatoes, with one 007 movie that many have 'forgotten' coming out on top Rotten Tomatoes has undertaken the mammoth task of ranking all the James Bond films, placing Licence to Kill at number 11 in a franchise spanning 27 films. With a 79 per cent approval rating from critics, Licence to Kill has had a varied reception - skirting the boundaries of generally favourable reviews - one critic stated: "Many may have forgotten [Timothy] Dalton's time as the iconic agent, but whether you remember him or not, it's worth sinking your teeth into." This 1989 entry is the sixteenth in the James Bond series and marked Timothy Dalton's second and last appearance as the famed MI6 spy. It was also John Glen's fifth and final film as director and the last to feature Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny and Robert Brown in the role of M. Reviews were polarised; while it was hailed as "very underrated" by one critic, another conceded it was merely "passably entertaining". Notably, Licence to Kill was the first of the Bond movies not to borrow its name from an Ian Fleming story. Although the film's narrative is largely original, there are elements inspired by Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, as well as injections from Fleming's own works - Live and Let Die and The Hildebrand Rarity, reports the Express. The plot centres around Bond going rogue from MI6 to embark on a vendetta against Franz Sanchez, a nefarious drug lord who is behind a vicious attack on Bond's friend, CIA operative Felix Leiter, and subsequently responsible for murdering Felix's bride just after their nuptials. GoldenEye (1995) followed Licence to Kill, marking the transition from Timothy Dalton to Irish actor Pierce Brosnan in the coveted James Bond role. At the box office, Licence to Kill racked up a sum of $156.2 million (equating to $373.3 million when adjusted for 2022), all on a budget of $32 million. One fan review heaped praises on the film: "One of my favourite Bond films. Loved the darker tone and do love this take on Bond. I enjoyed the story and the action." Conversely, another viewer expressed disappointment: "Licence to Kill is a very bland Bond movie. Even after just finishing it, I'm having a hard time remembering the specifics about the movie." On the Rotten Tomatoes ranking list of Bond films, Licence to Kill sits between GoldenEye at number ten and 007: You Only Live Twice at twelve. The Critics Consensus notes: "Licence to Kill is darker than many of the other Bond entries, with Timothy Dalton playing the character with intensity, but it still has some solid chases and fight scenes." In another critique, it was mentioned: "You may find yourself shaken - not stirred - by the screenwriting cruelty and cynicism behind the 16th Bond." One enthusiast praised Dalton's interpretation of Bond, commenting: "I enjoyed Moore's stint as Bond, it had excitement and humour but became increasingly silly and needed a reset. Dalton's much darker and more realistically human approach was a perfect bit of casting and made for a great Bond. This is one of my favourites of the franchise and for my tastes better than the following rather 'plastic' feeling Brosnan era." Reflecting on his choice to portray the iconic character, Dalton mentioned in the 21st edition of OO7 Magazine: "I knew the danger of taking on something like Bond was immense; you know that if it hadn't worked, it would have been a very serious, serious problem for me personally. And I think, in many ways, that perverse thing in all of us wants to take on a challenge and risk oneself, and I wanted to see if I could overcome that challenge and get these movies back into being in a world that I consider to be James Bond's world."
Spectator
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Darkly comic samurai spaghetti western: Tornado reviewed
Tornado is a samurai spaghetti western starring Tim Roth, Jack Lowden and Takehiro Hira (among others). Samurai spaghetti westerns aren't anything new. In fact, we wouldn't have spaghetti westerns if it weren't for the samurai genre – Sergio Leone's Fistful of Dollars (1964) was, as Clint Eastwood conceded, an 'obvious rip-off'* of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961) – yet this may be the first one set in 1790 and filmed in Scotland. It may also be the first one to feature thick woollens and tweed. That makes it sound twee which it isn't. It's a super-bloody revenge story filmed in just 25 days with a running time of 90 minutes. We love a 90-minute film, so I feel bad saying this, but it does feel as if it needed more time to cook. It comes flying out the gate flying, opening mid-chase with an adolescent girl (played by Koki, a famous Japanese singer-songwriter and model) running from the gang of outlaws who are on her trail. The outlaws are led by Sugarman (Roth) who would slit your throat at the drop of a hat. (The endless violence is darkly comic; expect chopped off limbs and geysers of spurting blood.) He has a resentful son, Little Sugar (Lowden), while the other woollen- and tweed-clad gang members have Guy Ritchie-esque names like Kitten (Rory McCann) or Squid Lips (Jack Morris). This is the sort of film Tom Hardy should be in but isn't. The gang pursue the girl through the forest into a mansion where she hides. What has she done? Questions are answered with a jump back in time to events earlier that day. (It turns out the opening 20 minutes come from the middle section of the story. We're doing middle, back, then forwards. I think chronological storytelling may well be over. I blame Christopher Nolan). The Japanese girl is not the Japanese girl with no name. She is called Tornado, and she and her father (Hira) are travelling puppeteers with a marionette act that stages samurai combat. It's an impoverished existence, not to her liking. She is bored and resists her father's attempt to teach her Japanese culture, honour and sword skills. Teenagers: when have they ever realised how boring they are? She wants a way out so when she crosses paths with Sugarman's gang she steals their bag of gold. She is not given to making good decisions, this wee lassie. She runs; they chase, and if you are awaiting a big twist, it doesn't come. It is light on story as well as dialogue. Thankfully, characters arrive fully formed in the hands of actors like Roth. Joanne Whalley pops up at one point and even though she only has two or three lines max, her character is fully formed. Koki, meanwhile, delivers a strong performance but Tornado may well be underwritten. Why is she so oblivious to the rising body count caused by her actions? Come the final act, which effectively turns into a superhero origins story, it turns out that she was listening to her father all along. We are meant to be rooting for her but I'm not sure I ever was. I wanted a lot more Kitten, as well as a conflict that wasn't solved by lopping someone's arm off. That said, the film is assured. It has a terrific soundtrack by Jed Kurzel, which is all pounding percussion and jagged strings with hints of Morricone, while the cinematography by Robbie Ryan delivers a beautiful yet bleak landscape beset by shimmering lochs. * When Fistful of Dollars was released Kurosawa wrote to Leone: 'It is a very fine film but it is my film… you must pay me.' He was awarded 15 per cent of all revenue.
