Three Outlaw Samurai

Well, the Internet has finally failed me. I just can't find a certain piece of information about something that I figured would be readily available. Okay, sorta. For quite awhile, 1964's Three Outlaw Samurai sat on my Netflix queue -- the saved portion -- as I waited for the new Criterion Collection DVD to become available. I'd read this 1964 samurai movie was a prequel to a highly successful Japanese TV series that ran for six seasons. Now that said....I can find very little about the show. As for the movie....READ ON!!!

A wandering ronin without a master or a job, a samurai Sakon Shiba (Tetsuro Tanba) notices a commotion out away from the road at a small, run-down mill. Naturally curious, Shiba investigates, finding three dirt-poor peasants inside, and they've kidnapped the daughter of the local magistrate, a particularly brutal man. Their goal of the kidnapping is simple, their village having come up with a petition that makes demands on how the village should be treated. Shiba decides to set up shop in the mill and see what comes of it. The magistrate is expecting a visit from the powerful Lord in the district and wants nothing to go wrong. He sends waves of samurais and hired killers at the mill and village to wipe out his opposition. Shiba finds out he may not be alone in his fight and curiosity as two other samurais, Sakura (Isamu Nagato) and Kikyo (Mikijiro Hira), deciding whether to join the fight and on which side.

I like samurais. There, I could end the review with that simple statement, but I won't. It's easy to compare samurais to wild west gunslingers, both living by their own code. Sure, that's somewhat idealized thanks to movies and pop culture, but it's there. These were men who drifted along -- in the case of samurais at least -- roving the roads, sworn to help and do good things. Cool premise, huh? I typically think so. Director Hideo Gosha turns in a stylish, interesting, if flawed story that I liked, but I had some issues with it. It's good, worth recommending, especially for samurai movie fans, but there's also some serious issues.

Not surprisingly, I thought the strongest part of 'Samurai' was....well, the samurai. The concept of the samurai is what works, including an at-times heavy-handed message. It's the variety here. Tanba's Shiba is the main focus, a curious, loyal man of his word who tries to do the right thing. When we meet him stumbling into the kidnapping, we're not quite sure of his motivations. Does he hope to intercede? Will he side with the peasants? Has he made his decision or does he just linger out of curiosity? We find out his answer eventually, but the mystery works. The other two outlaw samurais are similarly interesting but for different reasons. Nagato as Sakura is the scene-stealer, a down on his luck ronin who we meet being released from a jail cell. He's hit a rough patch, looks generally disheveled, but through it all, he wants to do what's right. Hira's Kikyo is the most underused, a samurai working for the corrupt, powerful lord, a samurai finally pushed too far.

A tweak on the men-on-a-mission movie, I thought this was going to be a movie about three outlaw samurai (You know, with the title and all). I didn't realize this was a prequel to the TV series -- that I can't find information about -- so that obviously affects how things go. 'Samurai' simply takes too long in uniting the three outlaws. They're not actually brought together until the last 10 minutes of a 93-minute movie. Gosha's movie does a good job presenting the three characters as individuals and not a collective group. Interesting, fascinating characters, very capable with their own principles and motivations, but I wish there was more of them. This is a movie with a lot of characters, a lot of twists, and things get fairly jumbled once the ball gets rolling.

That becomes my biggest issue. The characters are cool, the action scenes are stylish and surprisingly graphic and unceremonious, and the black and white cinematography adds to that very visual style. Beyond those three main characters though, I struggle to identity other people worth mentioning. The evil Lord is very evil. It seemed there was about 9 different female characters, all interested in one of the samurai, or not, or a peasant, and I lost track of what was going on. I struggled to keep up, simple as that. Some of that I can no doubt attest to my lack of familiarity with the Japanese cast. Characters seem to flit in and out of the story. The overarching message is pretty cool in terms of how dark it is. The Japanese Lord consistently breaks his word, betraying anyone in his way, anyone who will stop him from reaching the power he needs and wants. Lots of potential, an okay end result for me.

Three Outlaw Samurai (1964): ** 1/2 /****

You Only Live Twice

With any of the actors who have played James Bond during their careers, there has been ups and downs, even with the best and coolest 007 around, Sean Connery. He starts off sprinting out of the gates with Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball, four of my favorite Bond movies. Then there's 1967's You Only Live Twice, still a good, solid Bond movie, just not on the same level as his other entries.

While in orbit around Earth, an American space shuttle suddenly disappears, swallowed up by another large spacecraft. Just weeks after, a Russian space shuttle suffers the same fate, and both world powers seem on the brink of a nuclear war. In hopes of investigating the disappearances without being hunted down, MI6 agent James Bond (Connery) fakes his own death and goes to work. The last reports of the "abducting" spacecraft were somewhere near Japan so Bond heads there to investigate. The only problem? The spacecraft genuinely seem to have disappeared. There is little to no trace of them, but everything manages to find points to Spectre's involvement. With another American spacecraft launch fast approaching, time is running out for 007.

As a huge fan of movies, James Bond films are like westerns for me. I'm going to find something to like even in the bad ones. A bad Bond movie is still a Bond movie, and therefore better than many spy/espionage flicks. From director Lewis Gilbert, this is one of those middle of the road entries, not a classic and not a complete bomb, just somewhere in between. The franchise visits Japan for the first time, and the locations don't disappoint. Nancy Sinatra's theme -- listen HERE to 'You Only Live Twice' -- is one of the better Bond songs, and was sampled years later by Robbie Williams in Millenium. John Barry's score is as spot-on perfect as always. Even that impossible to duplicate 1960s style is there so what's missing? A franchise for the first time leaning toward a caricature of itself.

Of his six official Bond films and one unofficial (Never Say Never Again), I've always thought this was Connery's weakest effort. He had already stated he wouldn't be back for another film, and the same energy isn't there, both in his performance and the movie on a whole. It's not entirely his fault to be fair. The story has Bond "becoming" Japanese, going through several plastic surgery-like procedures and learning how to be a ninja in two or three days. It's one of the bigger stretches the Bond franchise has taken, and that's saying something. He isn't aided by some of the weaker Bond girls in any of the movies including Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi), a Japanese agent working at his side, Kissy (Mie Hama), his fake wife turned fellow agent, and Helga (Karin Dor), a Spectre assassin.     

Filling out the cast are some oppositely pretty cool performances that help balance out the weaknesses. Japanese actor Tetsuro Tamba plays Tiger Tanaka, Bond's Japanese counterpart who works with him in the investigation. Where some fans had an objection to a black Felix Leiter in Casino Royale, think of this one; an Asian Felix Leiter equivalent. Cool performance, an agent with ninja skills. Donald Pleasence makes a short but effective performance as Ernst Blofeld, the head of Spectre dead-set on taking over the world after the U.S. and Russia destroy themselves. Teru Shimada plays Mr. Osato, a business owner who's a front for Spectre's activities. Before playing Blofeld two films later in Diamonds Are Forever, Charles Gray makes a quick appearance as Henderson, a source Bond uses. And what would a 007 movie be without M (Bernard Lee), Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) and Q (Desmond Llewelyn)?

What does make 'Twice' memorable is the action, shot on a grand scale that few other Bond films can rival. The most obvious is the finale, Bond, Tiger, Kissy and a small army of ninja agents descending into a Spectre fortress hidden away in a dead volcano. Production designer Ken Adams designed and built a gigantic set that is a sight to behold. The finale is appropriately epic -- making up for some of the lower parts earlier -- as ninjas battle Spectre henchmen. How could that not be cool? An earlier aerial sequence is just as impressive, Bond in a mini-helicopter dueling with four full-size and heavily armed helicopters with some amazing aerial footage. Watch it HERE. There's also a car chase with a memorable payoff featuring the disposal of the nameless baddies, and in the originality department, Gilbert shoots an action chase on foot by helicopter, Bond running and fighting from Spectre henchmen on the top of a wharf warehouse.

Through it all, the problem is that is becomes a caricature of it all. 'Twice' provided much of the ammo for all the Austin Powers spoofs, and produced one of the great Simpsons episodes of all-time in You Only Move Twice featuring super-villain Hank Scorpio. Over the top is a valid description. It's still good, just not as good as the other more classic Connery-Bond pairings.

You Only Live Twice <---trailer (1967): ** 1/2 /****

The Five Man Army

Some movies just do their best to avoid you.  For me, one of them was 1969's The Five Man Army.  I don't know how many years back, but TCM devoted four Saturdays one month to showing spaghetti westerns, and I took my chance, watching just about all of them.  Besides the Clint Eastwood spaghettis and about 15 or 20 more, it is definitively harder to track down the rest (there were about 600 made overall) which I soon figured out.  One Saturday, I caught 'Army' and loved it, but could never track down a copy because it wasn't available anywhere.  Thankfully, someone was able to send me a VHS copy of the TCM print, and tada, I had my copy.

This isn't your typical spaghetti western with gunfighters shooting it out for women and riches in the desert.  As well, it was made with financial backing from MGM where most spaghetti westerns were made with backing from Italian studios.  Considering all the different elements of the story, it's a heist zapata spaghetti western with a men on a mission/mercenary setting for all the characters.  So all those things rolled together to form basically the coolest idea for a western ever.  Is it a classic?  No, but it isn't trying to be.  Good cast, great musical score, and action around every corner.

During the Mexican Revolution, a group of revolutionists catches wind of a gold shipment bound for Mexico City and hires an American to get the job done.  His name is simply, Dutchman (Peter Graves), and he goes about putting a team together to accomplish the mission.  His crew includes Augustus (James Daly), an explosives expert, Mesito (Bud Spencer), a mammoth strongman, Luis (Nino Castelnuovo), an acrobatic bandit and dead eye with a slingshot, and Samurai (Tetsuro Tanba), a master swordsman and knife thrower. The mission/robbery seems suicidal though as the five men must get aboard a heavily guarded armored train outfitted with 100 guards, machine guns and a cannon that can pick them off if they try and board.  All along the route, patrols of soldiers will be waiting for the signal to move in if trouble arises.  It seems impossible, but the Dutchman's got a plan.

A sucker for men on a mission movies, I fell for this one from the first time I saw it. 'Army' follows a familiar formula, but director Don Taylor (who reportedly only filmed part of the movie) handles everything so smoothly it is fun just to go along for the ride.  The movie follows the formula; recruit a team, introduce their specialties, reveal the mission, let the team loose on the mission, and the fallout with the survivors.  Taylor does just enough different to keep you on your toes, and does throw the audience a curveball here and there when he thinks they're too comfortable.  But at its most basic is an action-packed story that never waits too long in between gunfights and showdowns with Dutchman's crew, revolutionaries, bandits, and Mexican soldiers.

The calling card for 'Army' is easily the actual heist sequence when the Five Man Army hits the armored train.  To this point, we've only been given hints as to how they'll pull off this impossible job, but it all comes together in an almost wordless 26-minute sequence that is a masterful presentation of how to shoot a tense, exciting heist action sequence.  You can watch it starting HERE and continuing into Part 8, 9 and 10.  The movie was shot on location in Spain (you'll see some familiar locations from other spaghettis, including Once Upon a Time in the West), and nowhere does that benefit more than the heist sequence which features some crazy, absolutely ridiculous, and I imagine rather dangerous stunts.  But credit to the cast who seems to be doing a majority of their stunts, and on a moving train at that.  I love the movie on the whole, but the heist is the strongest and best part.

Filling out the Five Man Army is a great group of actors who were never huge stars.  Graves filmed this while on hiatus from his hit TV show Mission Impossible, and it's only fitting that the story is basically M:I in the wild west.  I like Graves a lot, and he's a good choice to play the tough, no-nonsense leader of this group of mercenaries.  His four men are all given a chance to shine, and none disappoint.  Daly is a scene-stealer as dynamite expert Capt. Augustus, delivering a monologue about the changing times in the west and how he doesn't expect any of them to survive.  Watch it HERE starting at the 4:30 mark. For a dumb old action movie, this speech says more than whole movies that cover the same time period. Spencer is awesome as ever as the immense, somewhat dim-witted Mesito, Castelnuovo is great as a shifty bandit you're never quite sure of, and Tanba doesn't say a word, letting his sword do his talking.  A great group, and a perfect team to pull off an impossible heist!

Watch enough spaghetti westerns, and it gets to be an easy thing to overlook composer Ennio Morricone and his great musical scores. His 'Army' score is an underrated one (listen to the main theme HERE) mixing the big and epic with the quieter and emotional.  Augustus' speech is aided by Morricone's soothing score being played under his words, but then the action sequence is boosted by this perfect action score that keeps the story flowing at all times.  Just another element of one of my favorite movies.  It is available to watch from start to finish starting with Part 1 of 11 in a great print on Youtube.  Enjoy it! 

The Five Man Army <---TCM trailer (1969): ****/****