This film essay is called “How Samurai Films are Responsible for Star Wars”, which is a long version of telling the history of Akira Kurosawa, a Japanese director who had created the movie that supposedly inspired the Star Wars series. The title card is even more interesting, since it writes that “Star Wars is released” in the same font that most Japanese films would write in.
I’d download this font if I’d find it.
The essay is told in a timeline using drawn images on a white board, mainly talking about the history of Akira Kurosawa as he is raised on Western movies while living in Japan and tries to make films up until he makes a film known as Hidden Fortress, which is about two peasants who help an outlaw princess and a samurai mentor escape a fortress guarded by a lot of samurai. Right after he mentions this, he immediately starts talking about George Lucas and how he’s related to this story, up until he actually makes the movie. Afterwards, the essay starts showing the two films that were focused on during the entire series, paralleling Star Wars and Hidden Fortress to show just how similar they actually are. It even brings up the first prequel movie and shows that it pulled out of the Kurosawa movie as well.
Fun fact: there is a type of film making in Japan known as “Jidei-Geki”, which is basically costumed drama.
The person who is making the movie is talking the entire time in a narration as he is drawing what he is talking about. He draws for the good majority of the essay, explaining the history as well as animating movement in editing. It looks so smooth that it almost looks as if it was 3D editing. Due to him talking for the majority of the essay, there’s little to almost no music at all, and if there is music, it’s because it’s playing off of the movie clips that he is using to prove his point. The majority of the sound is basically him talking.
It’s a simple seven minutes long (I’ve seen longer video essays, if you ask me), and it starts at the get-go talking about what is going on, with only a few seconds in the end to show off what other videos they have done. It’s interesting because, again, 98% of the essay is his artwork complimenting what he was talking about. It’s actually highly effective, because not only is it simple and to the point, it’s also mixed in with some humor and jokes by the narrator himself. The one visual joke I remember in particular pertains to George Lucas and the fact that he wanted to be a racecar driver. The narrator actually draws him in a scene similar to Speed Racer, and he even gives him the (O_O) face when he talks about how he got into a car accident and decided to go into film making instead. It’s a way to engage the watchers and to wake them up in case they’re falling asleep or losing interest, and it definitely kept me intrigued up until the end.
Yeah, I’d have that face too.
All in all, this is a nice essay talking about Japanese influence on American media. Since the majority of influences usually work with American influencing the media of other nations, it’s great to think that one of the greatest films of all time was influenced by another.
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