Reloaded...Kill Bill...Last Samurai...America discovers the Katana!

[Dark Jezter]

I agree with the comments earlier in this thread: Katanas have been done to death in movies.

I want to see more movies where a guy with a two-handed sword does some major asskicking.

 

[DarkSoldier]

What we need now is a rash of action flicks in which the hero's weapon is...

a spiked chain!

I prefer polearms, myself; gotta love that reach!

 

[jdavis]

The Katana is sort of a underground fad thing, just like Ninja's (which I believe don't actually use katana's), mainstream America is more attached to it Baseball and Corvettes and 44 magnums and Harley Davidsons. Of course we don't get many movies about Corvette driving on the edge police detectives with 44 magnums, oh wait yes we do.

Besides this year might of had a lot of movies with Japanese Katanas in them but next year looks to be the year of the Anicient Greeks. Sort of like the year we got all the deep sea monster movies, the Year of the Abyss, or how about the year of the volcanos, or year of the astroids.................

 

[Krieg]

The katana thing hit the mainstream radar pop culture-wise in the 70's with kung-fu & ninja movies + the Shogun mini-series.

Go back another 30 years with GI's returning from the Pacific with captured Gunto war trophies & wild stories about their use.

Or even in Lotr. Though not quite a Katana, the sword Arwen carries is more similar in design to that than anything else.

The Yataghan

Even the elven troops carry something simliar to a naginata, compared to a more western polearm.

Do you mean the Nagimaki? The Naginata is virtually indistinguishable from many Western Glaives.

It is because it (Katana) is a phallus symbol.

How is that different from other swords?

 

[Skade]

Uncle! Uncle I say! I actually tried posting that I had been shown the error of my ways earlier, but for some reason it would not post. Arwen's sword /= Katana. Got it.

Yataghan in a new weapon for me, I'd never seen it.

And yes, I meant nagimaki.

You know, if there is any one thing that proves the place of katana and other japanese weapons in Ameirican culture it is the swift and pedantic responses which the subject generates.

 

[Desdichado]

Hey! You just made me forget all about Monica Bellucci!

Cyd Charisse... sigh...

We must be some kind of "movie going elite" -- I didn't think very many people younger than my parents knew who she was...

 

[Felix]

All those comments about fencing and tap dancing being exhausting...

You want pure energy consumption? The Vikings had it right. Row, baby... just row. Crew sucks the life out of you faster and more suredly than anything I know...

Back on topic.

I would kinda like to see Main Gauche (sp?) fencing a bit more in the cinema. I always thought it was pretty cool to handle half of the parrying with the off hand, as well as have another blade to attack with. That, and I rock when I play Cervantes in Soul Calibur.

 

[Hand of Evil]

How is that different from other swords?

Americians are very much into that, the curve of the blade, the point, every thing about the katana says it, more than any other sword.

 

[Skade]

I first heard of Cyd Charise because of Janet Jackson. She was in a video of hers around 1990. Since then I've seen a few of her movies. Lovely woman. Really, quite good looking in 1990 too.

 

[barsoomcore]

We must be some kind of "movie going elite" -- I didn't think very many people younger than my parents knew who she was...

Just to say that her routine in Singin' In The Rain was a formative experience in my childhood. Holy legs.