Cowboys and Samurai

Here’s an excellent article I found written by Steven Garrard a few years back, about how the samurai films of Kurosawa and films about the Wild West have influenced each other. For example, Seven Samurai remade as The Magnicent Seven. I was particularly interested to read about A Fistful Dollars and Yojimbo, which I now realise had a big impact on much of the action scenes, plot and sensibilities in Zen Ambulance. 

Seven Samurai (1954)

Garrard doesn’t mention Once Upon a Time in the West but that’s surely another samurai-cowboy fusion, especially with the visual settings. The scene with the cowboys waiting at the railroad station is simply brilliant.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

http://www.thebubble.org.uk/film/kurosawa-and-the-wild-west