The Jidaigeki Samurai Film Genre

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The jidaigeki samurai film genre has been through a significant change in the pre World War II and post World War II periods. Due to the social circumstances, the earlier samurai films were more dramatic, with more dialogue than action. Post World War II films diverted towards action based, producing more violent characters with darker themes. The samurai is usually seen as a physically or psychologically damaged fighter, with dramatization of death and violence. In addition, the protagonists are solitary figures who try to avoid fights and conceal their abilities rather than exhibit them to the enemy. However, films from both periods also deal with a similar social issue of the samurai class and the dramatization of various scenes. The differences and commonalities between the samurai films with traditional values and the films that challenge those values will be analyzed clearly in the film trilogy: Samurai I, II and, III by Hiroshi Inagaki and Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa. The contrasts and commonalities of the two films are in the protagonists’ appearance, personality, sword skill, their relationship with others, cinematography, politics, and themes.
Samurai trilogy follows the life span of Takezo or …show more content…

Even though he gives advice to the young samurai, he can’t follow his own zen-like guidance. As an audience, we have an added level of awareness that Sanjuro is acutely aware of his own alienation; yet, he couldn’t resolve it, making this ironic. The primary trait is his decisiveness, for example, he deliberately set up plans to reveal his skills and used it to raise his price, not just doing things randomly. Thus, he is far from the typical good heroic character since he is not taking the moral high ground. He withdraws from fights and kills men who have no chance in the

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