From right to left: Toshiro Mifune, Minoru Chiaki, and Kamatari Fujiwara

If the idea of an epic tale told through the eyes of two bumbling characters sounds familiar, it should. For some, the names C-3P0 and R2-D2—the robotic supporting characters that anchor the Star Wars trilogy—will come to mind immediately. However, creator George Lucas has admitted that an earlier Japanese film — Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress – served as the inspiration for his own phenomenally successful space opera. But even so, there’s certainly more to The Hidden Fortress than just being the answer to a Star Wars trivia question.

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Sorry. The title’s a Last Dragon joke that only certain children of the 80s might get.

For the record, I don’t dislike remakes, and I don’t dismiss them out-of-hand whenever they’re announced. I’m actually intrigued by the potential that remakes hold. Put into the hands of a talented filmmaker with a distinctive creative vision, a remake can take the source material and create something new and impressive that stands on its own. And then there’s Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween. But I digress.

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Well, I finally finished my 300th review for, appropriately enough, Akira Kurosawa’s Sanjuro.I know it’s not the best-written review I’ve ever put out, but I did the best I could. I’ve always found that it’s much harder to review movies that you really love than it is to critique films that you really hate. In fact, I had to write my review of the 2007 remake, Tsubaki Sanjuro, first (to be published later) to really get a handle on what I wanted to say about the original.

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