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And, Kurosawa himself borrowed heavily from old American westerns. His famous samurai standoffs a were basically gunfights-at-dawn but with swords. In turn, Ku

And, Kurosawa himself borrowed heavily from old American westerns. His famous samurai standoffs a were basically gunfights-at-dawn but with swords. In turn, Kurosawa influenced many later westerns to the point that some of his samurai movies were remade as cowboy movies.

hackuser 12y ago
And he borrowed from Shakespeare: Ran was based heavily on King Lear, Throne of Blood on Macbeth, and maybe some others too. And Shakespeare borrowed from others. That's the way creativity in art (and science and technology) work; hardly anything is made from whole cloth. Is the concept behind our intellectual property system, that there is a single creator who owns the work, realistc?
huxley 12y ago
The story behind the remakes is pretty interesting all by themselves: John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven (1960) was based on The Seven Samurai (1954) When first released in America, the title for Kurosawa's film was "The Magnificent Seven", it created a stir and the rights for "The Seven Samurai" were bought for US$250 from the Toho Corporation, Toho entered into the contract under the pretense of being the sole copyright owner. Over the following 30 years, several lawsuits followed since Kurosawa hadn't received royalties and hadn't given consent to remakes, the end result of which was that Kurosawa and other principals were paid back royalties, but were countersued and Toho Corp ended up having to pay $50000 to MGM (who also gained the rights to any future remake of The Seven Samurai set as a Western). I guess in the real world, the Bandits end up winning after all. Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964) was based on Yojimbo (1961). Leone didn't acquire the rights to Yojimbo, he just went ahead and made the film, which was surprisingly successful. Kurosawa reportedly said, "I’ve seen your movie. It’s a very good movie. Unfortunately, it’s my movie." Leone is supposed to have settled out of court for 15% of worldwide residuals plus $100,000.

hackuser 12y ago

And he borrowed from Shakespeare: Ran was based heavily on King Lear, Throne of Blood on Macbeth, and maybe some others too. And Shakespeare borrowed from others. That's the way creativity in art (and science and technology) work; hardly anything is made from whole cloth. Is the concept behind our intellectual property system, that there is a single creator who owns the work, realistc?

huxley 12y ago

The story behind the remakes is pretty interesting all by themselves: John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven (1960) was based on The Seven Samurai (1954) When first released in America, the title for Kurosawa's film was "The Magnificent Seven", it created a stir and the rights for "The Seven Samurai" were bought for US$250 from the Toho Corporation, Toho entered into the contract under the pretense of being the sole copyright owner. Over the following 30 years, several lawsuits followed since Kurosawa hadn't received royalties and hadn't given consent to remakes, the end result of which was that Kurosawa and other principals were paid back royalties, but were countersued and Toho Corp ended up having to pay $50000 to MGM (who also gained the rights to any future remake of The Seven Samurai set as a Western). I guess in the real world, the Bandits end up winning after all. Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964) was based on Yojimbo (1961). Leone didn't acquire the rights to Yojimbo, he just went ahead and made the film, which was surprisingly successful. Kurosawa reportedly said, "I’ve seen your movie. It’s a very good movie. Unfortunately, it’s my movie." Leone is supposed to have settled out of court for 15% of worldwide residuals plus $100,000.