- Actors: Sonny Chiba
- Format: Colour, Dubbed, DVD-Video, PAL, Widescreen
- Language Japanese
- Subtitles: English
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 2.35:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: 15
- Studio: Best Medicine
- DVD Release Date: 18 April 2005
- Run Time: 136 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- ASIN: B0006IINIC
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 26,808 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Legend of the Eight Samurai, from the perspective of a Sonny Chiba fan, and a fan of Japanese cinema in general, is an extremely entertaining film. The plot is fairly straightforward, a Princess must break the curse placed on her family by gathering eight supernaturally ordained warriors to fight off a horde of the evil undead that want to capture her for their own nefarious purposes.
The blurb bills it as "The Star Wars of Samurai films", but with the exception of one relatively insignificant plot point this comparison does not really bear much scrutiny, if anything this film reminded me of Conan the Barbarian, with evil magicians and much swinging of cold steel in some well choreographed fight scenes.
Sonny Chiba, as always, helped me to enjoy this film by being hard as nails, and is definitely the star draw of this film, although, because of the nature of this film, and his supporting role it is not up to scratch in comparison to some of his other work, such as the superb G.I. Samurai or the gloriously grindhouse Street Fighter trilogy.
The main problem I had with this film was the absolutely appalling soundtrack, which completely ruined the sword and sorcery feeling of the film by consisting of disgustingly insipid mid-80s power ballads rather than more traditional Japanese music.
The special effects have also not dated very well, in particular the giant snakes and centipede, which seem to be made of vulcanised rubber and fly around unconvincingly, and their primary mode of attack seems to be holding still while the victim rolls into them and screams for their life. Truly horrifying, but not in the way it was intended (unless you have a phobia of being hugged to death by unconvincing rubber wildlife).
The final problem I had was that the subtitling is not great, some lines are missed out altogether, although these seem fairly few, but the worst offence is failing to get one of the characters names right on several occaisions, with it changing entirely between lines.
This is really a film for fans of the genre, and of Sonny Chiba. If you can look past the dated special effects in some scenes (which I actually quite enjoyed, in a kitsch sort of way), the absolutely TERRIBLE music and some inconsistent subtitling - which is pretty much par for the course for English releases of Japanese films anyway - then you'll have a good time watching it, it doesn't demand much of you and spins an enteraining yarn.
The blurb bills it as "The Star Wars of Samurai films", but with the exception of one relatively insignificant plot point this comparison does not really bear much scrutiny, if anything this film reminded me of Conan the Barbarian, with evil magicians and much swinging of cold steel in some well choreographed fight scenes.
Sonny Chiba, as always, helped me to enjoy this film by being hard as nails, and is definitely the star draw of this film, although, because of the nature of this film, and his supporting role it is not up to scratch in comparison to some of his other work, such as the superb G.I. Samurai or the gloriously grindhouse Street Fighter trilogy.
The main problem I had with this film was the absolutely appalling soundtrack, which completely ruined the sword and sorcery feeling of the film by consisting of disgustingly insipid mid-80s power ballads rather than more traditional Japanese music.
The special effects have also not dated very well, in particular the giant snakes and centipede, which seem to be made of vulcanised rubber and fly around unconvincingly, and their primary mode of attack seems to be holding still while the victim rolls into them and screams for their life. Truly horrifying, but not in the way it was intended (unless you have a phobia of being hugged to death by unconvincing rubber wildlife).
The final problem I had was that the subtitling is not great, some lines are missed out altogether, although these seem fairly few, but the worst offence is failing to get one of the characters names right on several occaisions, with it changing entirely between lines.
This is really a film for fans of the genre, and of Sonny Chiba. If you can look past the dated special effects in some scenes (which I actually quite enjoyed, in a kitsch sort of way), the absolutely TERRIBLE music and some inconsistent subtitling - which is pretty much par for the course for English releases of Japanese films anyway - then you'll have a good time watching it, it doesn't demand much of you and spins an enteraining yarn.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
18 reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Suprisingly good fantasy epic
19 Mar 2002
Format:DVD
Eight mysterious crystals from the body of a long dead princess now identify the eight samurai who are destined to help a beautiful young princess overcome a curse on her royal family. They are set against an evil queen who is immortal.
The queen and her son live in a castle assisted by two ghouls, first, a blind witch , and second, a snake charmer, and a legion of anonymous samurai. The eight samurai (called ninja in the film due to the popularity of ninja in the 80's) have individual skills that the princess will require to defeat the queen and the demon who gives the queen her power.
Borrowing greatly from Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Sonny Chiba's character relies on the earlier portrayal of Kambai. The story focuses however on the love story between the princess and one of her samurai, a very Kikuchyo-esqe farmer turned samurai who fights like a madman in the finale.
The photography is borderline excellent and especially vibrant. Swordfights are frequent and dazzling, most involve the samurai being vastly outnumbered. Choreography, although not up to modern standards, is adequate and exciting. Certain scenes are staged very well, including the brief fight in a garden with flowered trees where the wind blowing during the fight cause the petals to fall like snow.
Despite frequent location changes the story seems to flow rapidly and evenly except that the revenge story comes to a halt at a few points to build the Kikuchyo like eighth samurai character who becomes the love interest. This is the only part of the film that creates empathy for any of the characters, but since the acting can be described as hammy, and the dubbed translation drops most of the emotion from the acting, this part can get tedious.
Other notable flaws are poorly puppeted rubber creatures, some poorly voiced dubbing, and an intrusive 80's love song that plays during the "love story" part of the movie. Also, at one point it calls attention to an object that, because of the reduced size (TV format)isn't on screen. I normally don't mind standard screen size if it is edited properly, but this film deserves widescreen.
The movie as it has been released is a 3 star, If it were redubbed, the love song removed, and released in widescreen, it may deserve a 31/2 or 4 stars.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Fantastic!!!
14 Mar 2008
Format:DVD
What is not to like about this movie?
I bought it on a whim because it was in a
bargain bin and it had Sonny Chiba's name on it.
Boy am I glad that I did!
The sets and costumes are wonderful and the plot is great.
Oh yeah, there are great martial arts battles, too.
There is a clan of undead sorcerers, who are nasty indeed,
on a vendetta and the princess they seek is their last remaining
target, but she is protected by a gathering group of eight guards,
identified by their possession of eight magical crystals,
whose destiny it is to save the princess.
Being an admirer of illuminated manuscript, I really enjoyed
the plot being explained in part by a scroll with beautiful
illustrations.
This is far and away superior to most fantasy films
and if you have any interest in martial arts, Japanese
or fantasy cinema, you will not want to miss this one.
I bought it on a whim because it was in a
bargain bin and it had Sonny Chiba's name on it.
Boy am I glad that I did!
The sets and costumes are wonderful and the plot is great.
Oh yeah, there are great martial arts battles, too.
There is a clan of undead sorcerers, who are nasty indeed,
on a vendetta and the princess they seek is their last remaining
target, but she is protected by a gathering group of eight guards,
identified by their possession of eight magical crystals,
whose destiny it is to save the princess.
Being an admirer of illuminated manuscript, I really enjoyed
the plot being explained in part by a scroll with beautiful
illustrations.
This is far and away superior to most fantasy films
and if you have any interest in martial arts, Japanese
or fantasy cinema, you will not want to miss this one.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Very silly
13 Dec 2004
Format:DVD
Legend of the Eight Samurai is just as bad as you'd think it should be. The plot bounces around in a most confusing fashion, but who cares about what's going on, anyway? The word Samurai is interchanged with Ninja in this story. The cast includes such characters as The Princess, Necktie Ninja, pantsless Samurai, unloved lady ninja, Elvis Samurai, The Evil Queen, the old lady who tears her own face off, and a bevy of poisonous women. Throw in tentacles and glowing blue balls, and the MST3K-style jokes happen all on their own. For ease of comprehension, all you need to remember is that the way of the Samurai is death, and expect a final deathcount of Shakespearian proportions.
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