Legend of the Eight Samurai

This week I am sharing a review for one of my first DVD bargain bin “finds”. This gem is a costume horror flick from 1983 set during Japan’s feudal period that plays like a moody cross between Krull and Star Wars sans the science fiction elements. There‘s mysticism, blood sacrifice, an evil Queen (who needs that blood to achieve immortality?), her wicked son (who kisses his mother?!), a princess in danger (who carries a flute and uses a magic bow?), would be heroes that try to protect the princess, and, as if all that wasn’t enough, there is even worship of demonic entities that are apparently bound into really ugly statuary hidden in subterranean caverns!

Features:

Listed Running Time: 130 minutes

MPAA Rating: Not Rated. (Contains mild violence.)

Cast: Hiroko Yakushimaru, Hiroyuki Sanada, Sonny Chiba, Etsuko Shihomi, Yuki Meguro, Mari Natsuki, Nana Okada, Masaki Kyomoto, Kenji Ohba, Nagare Hagiwara, Seizo Fukumoto, Mikio Narita, Tadashi Naruse, Minori Terada, Taiji Tonoyama.

Director: Kinji Fukasaku.

AKA: Satomi hakken-den

The story underpinning Legend of the Eight Samurai is very much a dark fairy tale akin to what the Grim Brothers might have written, unexpurgated and free of Disneyesque sillifying, had they written a volume of Japanese fairy tails. As a movie this is the sort of thing that Hammer Studios might have done had Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires not flopped and the studio continued production. In style this a cross between Krull and Star Wars, assuming you can imagine an evil queen character like the one found in the story of Snow White suddenly woven into either of those movies as the main villain. Indeed, this almost seems like a dark fantasy retelling of the classic Snow White fairy tale. Only instead of dwarves the heroes are samurai warriors. If not for the rather silly dubbing this would probably have been a minor horror classic, rather than a nearly forgotten underdog.

Long story short there is this nasty witch queen who needs the blood of the princess, but the princess has these defenders who are identified by these magical mystical marbles that they possess. Each of these marbles are shown to glow with an oriental character, probably signifying a virtue the hero possess like strength or something. Very reminiscent of Message From Space though, if memory serves, though I think that movie didn’t use glowing crystal balls but glowing walnuts that had been spray painted gold(?). Overall the picture quality is very good, though it‘s full screen. Most surprising were the extras, which include cast biographies and an interactive trivia challenge. Nice.

The Setting: With an oddment of background music that sounds like it was lifted straight out of vintage serials from bygone silver screen years and, at other times, random tracks from some obscure disco album it’s hard to believe that this movie is set in feudal Japan. Yet it is. In a live-action anime sort of way. Wow. And what about those glowing marbles? Whether an actual element of Japanese folk legend or merely a cinematic affectation they have “magic item” written all over them! Perhaps something similar to those sigils characters started play branded with in Curse of the Azure Bonds.

The Characters: The dramatis personae are very archetypal and thus should be easy to convert over into most game systems character types. There’s the princess being chased by the evil Queen (or Witch-Queen or Wicked Stepmother), the good (masterless) samurai heroes, the evil samurai villain, henchmen aplenty, and etcetera.

The Samurai: The funniest, or oddest pending your point of view, thing about this movie is that whoever did the dubbing obviously was oblivious to both the title and actual content of the film as everyone refers to themselves as ninjas. This despite the fact there is nary a bit of ninja apparel in evidence. If you can forgive a movie it’s bad dubbing, dubbing that has characters obviously decked to the hilt in samurai garb referring to themselves as ninjas, then you should be able to enjoy this movie. That said this movie is chock full of samurai. The evil queen has a samurai army. The heroes, while not very samurai looking, aren’t ninjas either. So I am assuming they are free range samurai. Ergo: This is essentially a mythic tale of good samurai warriors vs. evil samurai warriors.

Suggested Game Uses: Not only is this movie a veritable gold mine of game ideas it is also fun to watch. I’d suggest sitting down with your gaming group and watching this through then discussing those aspects that you’d like to adapt for use as a adventure or feel would be worth integrating into an existing campaign. Or, if you’d prefer to set up a campaign based around the central story, then look for a complimentary set of rules.

Some possible RPG rule sets that might help bring this world to life are: The old tried and true AD&D Oriental Adventures or Legend of the Five Rings. Both should provide roughly the right balance of magic and combat rules for a Wu Xia style setting. However, these games may not fully capture the mythical and overtly supernatural tone that is unique to Legend of the Eight Samurai. Thus I’d also suggest looking at: Pulp-Fu. This is currently in my review queue, and while it is designed for Wushu games of “Noir Style and Pulp Action” having this set of rules handy can’t hurt. Possibly even more relevant, at least for setting up campaigns in a historical Japanese setting, is: Sengoku. This is an RPG “based on Japanese history and myth, and chanbara (Japanese "swordplay" films) and jidai-geki (Japanese period films)” that may be most suitable for emulating the period setting of the movie. Or, if you can find a copy, yet another alternative might be the classic Bushido RPG published by Fantasy Games Unlimited.

After researching the director it turns out that Kinji Fukasaku was indeed the director of Message From Space, and worked on Tora! Tora! Tora! as well. You’d think a movie directed by someone who worked on the definitive movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor would have been given better treatment than this! Seriously this movie is in desperate need of rescuing from the wasteland of bad dubs where it has been relegated by those destined to fill the first bolgia of Maleboge. If Krull rated a proper digitally remastered widescreen special edition release then surely Legend of the Eight Samurai deserves the same consideration? It would be nice to see a company that cares about old films, like Anchor Bay, put out a proper DVD of this. Preferably a definitive version that does away with the inane dubbing and music soundtrack obviously lifted wholesale from whatever happened to be on hand at the time.

Rating: 8 out of 10 golden apples. Worth adding to your video collection. Given a proper release I’d probably rate this a 10.

Negatives: Whoever did the original dubbing was either intentionally having fun with the dialogue or an escaped mental patient. No, really, the dubbing isn‘t so much atrocious as it is clueless. It is obvious everyone is wearing Samurai armor, yet the character constantly talk about ninjas! If those responsible for this challenge to movie critics patience didn’t deliberately go out of their way to ignore what the film actually portrays in an effort to play to, one assumes, the 80s ninja fad then I‘m a mutant samurai squirrel named Shinbo.

You do remember the ninja fad? Yeah, I’d feign ignorance too. This version was obviously edited for the U.S. video market in the mid- to late 80s, circa when all those marginal ninja this and ninja that films came out. Didn’t wrestlers even star in a few? Anyway, that’s my only real gripe. For a blind bargain bin type purchase the picture quality, though full screen, is far crisper than most similarly priced budget DVDs. Especially the martial arts ones. But the dubbing? Whoa.

Positives: Any movie that reminds you of fond childhood favorites like Krull or Star Wars with shades of being a dark fantasy version of Snow White can‘t be all that bad. Plays find on standalone units and PC DVD drives, though the picture quality seems slightly better when played from a standalone unit.

Availability: This movie has been released by a number of budget DVD outfits. My copy comes from Platinum Disc Corporation. However it has also been released by Brentwood, Front Row, and VCI Video. The information I’ve found on the VCI edition indicates its video quality may be poor. Otherwise I have very little information about other releases. Prices should generally range from $3.99 to $9.99 for this title. This title has also been included in some “boxed sets” so take a very close look at what’s in the bargain bin before shelling out your hard earned cash. You may just be able to snag four (or more) movies for the price of one!