Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, a visit to the Far East for some Japanese film treasures, all directed by the great Akira Kurosawa. We also have a wine pairing for each movie. First of all, a tip of the green visor to the Trailers From Hell gurus, who named this week's feature Akira! The single word and the exclamation point really make one think of a Japanese monster movie. Godzilla! Rodan! Mothra! Lost in Translation! Well, I let myself go a little too far there. It's not the first time.
I discovered the pleasure of watching Akira Kurosawa's films long before I discovered the pleasure of sipping a good wine. It was in college, a film appreciation class. I remember one criticism which went, "All I got from Rashomon was a stiff neck and a sore butt." That's how I rolled in college, anything for a joke, even one fueled by Annie Green Springs. I was actually criticizing the accommodations at the student center film viewing room. I really liked the film, but there was a joke to be made. I'm still trying to grow out of that habit. Thankfully I did grow out of sipping Annie Green Springs while viewing Kurosawa's treasures.
Maybe the best known Kurosawa film is from 1954, The Seven Samurai. Later translated into English as the western, The Magnificent Seven, this movie has been reimagined more times than A Star is Born.
A village of farmers hire a samurai warrior to help them battle a band of thugs who plan to attack after harvest and steal their crops. This was harder back in the 16th century than it is today. With TaskRabbit, a good and dependable samurai is just a click away. Back then you had to know somebody.
The samurai assembles his team and they go to work protecting and serving like the LAPD can only dream about. Muskets versus swords may not sound like a fair fight, but the bandits only had a few guns and the good guys stole one of them. Also, samurai are fairly good with blades, so the edge was actually theirs.
The villagers who hired the septet couldn't afford to pay much, so in honor of them, let's splurge on our wine for The Seven Samurai. Black Samurai Cabernet Sauvignon hails not from the mountains of Japan, but from the valley called Napa. Hey, it's a cool label. If you can find it, it will cost about $200. There's no discount if you happen to be a samurai, but it wouldn't hurt to ask.
Kurosawa's Rashomon is the 1950 examination of how the teller tells the tale. Four people give very different accounts of a crime, their stories filtered by their own perspectives. Toshiro Mifune stars as a robber who murders a samurai, if that's what you want to believe. His performance is powerful, a modern masterpiece of acting. During my college days, I briefly tried to emulate Mifune's vocal mannerisms. After a few blown job interviews, I decided to give it up. However, John Belushi used those mannerisms to great effect in his brief career.
The technique of investigating what people say, and how they say it, was later used to a lesser degree in The Conversation. Gene Hackman discovers that the couple on whom he is eavesdropping are not in fear for their lives, they're plotting a murder. We should employ this sort of discretion when listening to our politicians tell us how great they're going to make America.
In the legal world, the Rashomon effect is the name given to the explanation of how different people give differing testimony of the same event. If your lawyer is basing your case on the Rashomon effect, you're probably screwed.
Kurosawa Sake is no relation to the director, but details like that have never stopped me before. Kurosawa Junmai Kimoto is a craft sake, if you will. If you won't, we'll call it an artisanal rice wine. The kimoto style of sake differs from the big brands in that it requires more work, takes longer to make, and costs more. My wife would love it! You can find it for under $30 in a lot of liquor, beer and wine outlets.
George Lucas says he drew heavily from Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress for his Star Wars juggernaut. The 1958 adventure centers on two paupers who agree to help get a man and a woman across dangerous territory. What they don't know is that he's a general and she's a princess. They're helping the couple for money, so they don't really care who they are as long as they get paid. I'm sure you can relate.
Fortress did quite well in Japanese theaters, where movie-goers eat puffed rice, not popcorn, and they eat it from a bento box, not a crinkly paper bag. They were also too polite to talk to the screen. American audiences were spoiled by the grandeur of Rashomon and The Seven Samurai, and were not so inclined to applaud. When they talked to the screen, it was not so much to ask for a refund on the ticket price as it was to ask for directions to where Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was playing. Today, Fortress is regarded as another Kurosawa masterpiece, and it garners as many rotten tomatoes as you can throw.
Fortress Winery of California’s North Coast wine region puts out a namesake Bordeaux style, made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, and Merlot grapes. It's not hidden, and this Fortress sells for about $30.
Follow Randy Fuller on X
If you are making the leap over to BlueSky, I'm there, too.
