10 Samurai Movies To Watch If You Played Ghost Of Tsushima

10 Samurai Movies To Watch If You Played Ghost Of Tsushima

Ghost of Tsushima put players right in the role of a samurai, offering plenty of action and story. Anyone who played it might also enjoy these films!

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Ghost of Tsushima has likely reignited most people’s fascination for the most popular soldiers of Japan, the samurai. No other warrior class in history has been as revered and popularized as these feudal combatants. Everything from their weapon and their way of life is almost a religion these days with how closely studied and represented they are in pop culture.

As such, even Ghost of Tsushima was inspired primarily by many great representations of samurai in media– some of which existed long before video games were even conceived. These mostly came in the form of films, mostly Japanese vintage ones that have not only redefined filmmaking globally but also gave birth to masterpieces such as Ghost of Tsushima. Take a good look at these 10 films once you’re done with the game or before you even play it to get into the proper bushido mood and mindset.

10 YOJIMBO

Any fan of Japanese cinema can’t go wrong with either director Akira Kurosawa or actor Toshiro Mifune. A combination of those two? Even better. Arguably, that artistic union was at its best in Yojimbo. It’s about a lone ronin or masterless samurai (Mifune) who tries to profit from two warring gangs by fanning their conflict and playing either side.

This does put his honor into question but his altruistic side ultimately ends up getting the better of him and he ends up saving a whole town without anything to gain. Such a theme should be familiar with players of Ghost of Tsushima especially since Jin Sakai always questions his honor as a samurai as he strays further from his code.

9 SANJURO

As a sequel to Yojimbo, Sanjuro follows the story of well, Sanjuro Kuwabatake which is the fake name of Toshiro Mifune’s lone ronin character. As such, he’s still a nameless wanderer in Sanjuro and jumps around from adventure to adventure fixing problems.

This time around, he reluctantly helps a group of young and inexperienced samurai who, without him, wouldn’t have been able to save their lord and clan from a corrupted power struggle. There’s more political scheming here involved and it’s less subversive than Yojimbo but it’s the same good thing with the same sugoi protagonist.

8 RAN

Ran, again from Akira Kurosawa, places emphasis less on an individual but more on the world going on around them. In this case, it’s an old Japanese feudal lord whose castle is under siege by an enemy clan. War rages on around him as he tries to decide what is best for his empire by dividing it among his three sons.

Ran is considered one of Kurosawa’s best adaptations of William Shakespeare’s works, particularly King Lear. The best part is that this 1985 film looks better than most action and war movies these days; for something with no special effects, that alone should be good enough reason to contemplate purchasing a 4K TV. It’s one of the few movies that feature full-scale feudal Japanese warfare and should be a visual delight for any fan of Ghost of Tsushima.

7 THE LAST SAMURAI

Speaking of full-scale samurai warfare, The Last Samurai is also one of the best films to grace viewers with that marvel. It’s a Hollywood production and for some, Tom Cruise might feel out-of-place but do keep in mind that it was inspired by an actual historical event and that a real-life French equivalent of Nathan Algren existed and fought alongside samurai at around the same time period.

With that out of the way, The Last Samurai is simply just one of the best modern films out there that prominently showcase a large-scale samurai combat playground; after watching it, it would be hard to not fire up Ghost of Tsushima once again to get a similar feeling.

6 13 ASSASSINS

Looking for more samurai who have chosen to set aside their honor or chivalric rules and fight like wolves instead? 13 Assassins might just be an excellent choice. 13 Assassins follows the story of a group of samurai who fell out with their corrupt lord’s good graces and decided to protect the people he rules over instead.

They do this by planning out one of the most epic assassination attempts in cinema. This film about samurai-turned-assassins even served as one of the chief inspirations for Ghost of Tsushima’s combat. That’s how you know it won’t disappoint in the action department. It’s also a relatively recent film (2010) and should be more visually tolerable for the younger audience.

5 SEVEN SAMURAI

You might have noticed that this is already the fourth Akira Kurosawa film recommended here, but it can’t be helped, Ghost of Tsushima might as well give Kurosawa some credit given how it takes away from the director’s best films. In this case, it would be Kurosawa’s supposed magnum opus, Seven Samurai.

It spotlights the exploits of a rag-tag gang of seven ronin who have banded together in order to defend some downtrodden peasants from bandit attacks. The plot itself seemed simple at the time but it’s pretty much the granddaddy of action movies thanks to its deceptively basic premise and trendsetting action shots. Besides, seeing lordless samurai defending peasants evoke some familiar feelings coming from Ghost of Tsushima.

4 GOEMON

It might look like a green screen nightmare, but Goemon is one of the most similar films in existence to Ghost of Tsushima. It revolves around a thief in Japanese legend named Goemon who is pretty much their version of Robin Hood.

Much like Robin Hood, Goemon runs around plundering the rich to help the poor except in this movie, he goes full measure and decides to kill an oppressive warlord. What he does to achieve this is not unlike what Jin Sakai resorts to in his quest to defeat the Mongols.

3 THE SAMURAI TRILOGY

Can’t get enough of Toshiro Mifune? Then tie up that man bun and put on that scruffy scowl because there’s more of him in the Samurai trilogy. The three films are the cinematic retelling of the legendary Musashi Miyamoto’s tenure as a samurai.

That includes all his duels and escapades from town to town performing majestic and astounding feats along the way. All three films follow Miyamoto’s journey from a young soldier surviving numerous battles up to his spiritual awakening as a master swordsman.

2 KILLING/ZAN

By far the latest film here, Killing or Zan is a 2018 directorial debut movie about a young ronin in conflict with himself about duty and honor. It’s more low-budget compared to the established samurai films of the past but Zan nevertheless proves that its a worthy successor to its progenitors in the genre.

Zan closely studies Sosuke Ikematsu’s hard life as a samurai who is pulled into a life of violence after a feudal war reared its head. Much like Jin Sakai, Sosuke faces numerous challenges to his adherence to bushido in the face of moral grey areas and the ugliness of killing itself.

1 ZATOICHI (2003)

Want to see what an actual “ghost” samurai is in action? Well, look no further than what the physically blind Zatoichi can do. He’s supposedly just a masseuse who looks helplessly blind most of the time but not many can defeat him in a violent moral argument about justice once a sword is in his hand.

Zatoichi’s character himself has had several films but the most latest among them was the 2003 movie. Fun fact, he’s the very samurai who popularized the reverse grip for the katana that it’s even called “Zatoichi style,” so much of the cool angsty samurai in anime have him to thank. Of course, it’s also an awesome samurai film to watch before or after playing Ghost of Tsushima.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/samurai-movies-watch-if-played-ghost-tsushima/

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