Cloning Kurosawa

Abstract

It was argued in the previous chapter that combining genres was the one way to come up with something new. Certainly this is the interesting point of adaptations, remakes, or permutations: they always result in something new while maintaining the connection to the old. Or to elaborate on the reference to Lucas’ Star Wars series, unless the clone is raised in a manner identical to the original, it is not going to be the same person, although there will be resemblances. Cultural context, which includes the historical and social as well as language, means that even the most faithful remakes or adaptations become something else. Both the combination of genres as well as the ability of a text to mutate would seem to be Lucas’ (The Hidden Fortress DVD) reasons for arguing that Star Wars is not his version of the Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress (Kakushi toride no san akunin or Three Villains of the Hidden Fortress 1958). Lucas admits that his film is about a princess and a “treasure” (in this case information) that need to be got to safety; but in the Kurosawa film, there was only General Rokurota Makabe, played, everreliably, by Toshiro Mifune, who was responsible for accomplishing this mission. There are no young men vying for the feisty Princess Yuki’s (Uehara Misa) affection, although the Japanese film does offer us two downtrodden peasants turned foot soldiers in the place of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamil) and Hans Solo (Harrison Ford).KeywordsFairy TaleMedieval RomanceBattle SceneFairy StoryVampire SlayerThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.