Will Ross

Of cowboys and samurai

By Will Ross When responding to a remake, it’s tempting to judge it on a binary comparative: is it better, worse, or as good as its source? While I’d never try to dissuade someone from thinking of, say, Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla remake as abominable, it’s not exactly instructive to stop there. Even disappointing remakes can reveal major ideological shifts or differences across times and cultures. Take, for instance, Akira Kurosawa’s classic jidaigeki (period drama), Seven Samurai (1954), and its American western remake counterpart, The Magnificent Seven (1960). The plot is easy to adapt: A starving village of farmers is about…

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