The remaining recruits? Katsuhiro (Sean Teague), Kambei’s young samurai apprentice, who falls for Kirara. Gorobei (Bob Carter), the daredevil street performer who gambles with his life. Heihachi (Greg Ayres), the “toothpick artisan” who chops wood with his katana in exchange for food. Kyuzo (Sonny Strait), the master swordsman who as of episode #8 has yet to make his membership official. And Kikuchiyo (Christopher Sabat), the boastful samurai pretender so memorably and comedically portrayed by Toshiro Mifune in Kurosawa’s original. Can Kikuchiyo’s animated counterpart possibly compete with Mifune’s oversized personality? No, it turns out, so the animators have supplied him with an oversized mechanical body that’s slightly broken down, with a large sputtering muffler protruding from the side of his face like a smoker’s pipe. His character still serves as comic relief, though; a running gag finds him continually losing body parts in battle.
Will Samurai 7 become the “anime classic” that IFC is promising? Too soon to tell. However, as Kambei tells Kirara, “Sometimes, the water you locate will be bitter.”
Samurai 7 will be preceded (at 10 pm) by the “relaunch” and reconceptualization of Henry’s Film Corner, now more broad-based and renamed The Henry Rollins Show. As you’ve probably guessed, the once-monthly, now weekly program is hosted by Mr. Rollins (sometime actor, former lead singer of Black Flag, and utterly awful current television interviewer), who is breathlessly described in the press notes as “IFC’s own Samurai!”
The lone episode made available for preview features “the always outspoken [not here, however] historian” (!) Oliver Stone, a musical performance by Sleater-Kinney and Henry’s indefensible defense of Keanu Reeves. Uh, IFC? Perhaps, recalling your core mission of presenting “TV, uncut,” you should desist from this kind of programming and continue taking real chances with promising series like Samurai 7. But do us all a favor — air them truly uncut, in their original language, and not passably dubbed into English.
On the Web
Samurai 7: //www.ifc.com/ifctvflash/samurai7/
The Henry Rollins Show: //www.ifctv.com/henry/
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