MovieChat Forums > Le Samouraï (1967) Discussion > He is called samurai but he is really a ...

He is called samurai but he is really a ninja.

posted 8 years ago by ObscureAuteur
2 replies | jump to latest

Samurai is "one who serves". Service is rendered to some sort of lord (Daimyo) or authority figure. A samurai without a post is a ronin. Jef Costello is a free lance hired killer without a bond to anyone in particular, in fact his non-association in an essential element because he has no connection to the victim to trace back to his employer. (Just what Yabu was counting on in Shogun as well.) I think that makes him a ninja. Notwithstanding he shares the code, he is a free agent not a server. Of course, that would be a terrible title today because of all the silly movies using that word, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Surf Ninjas, and endless action movies and dumb comedies with Ninja in the title. It would not have been a familiar word in 1967, I don't see movie listings with the word until the 1980's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja

The only serious defect in this movie is how Jef sticks out like a sore thumb at the night club in that film noir beige trenchcoat and hat outfit in the midst of black evening wear. Apparently despite the meticulous attention to disguising the stolen car, getting a disposable untraceable gun, arranging two distinct interlocking alibis, using and discarding the white gloves, the idea of camouflage at the target site somehow entirely escapes him.

CB

Good Times, Noodle Salad

[–] Liburnius 8 years ago

You are right, Jef does seem to fit the description of Ninja more than the Samurai, in practice. I have no idea how well known the term Ninja was to Western audiences in the 1960s, but it's quite obvious what that is supposed to evoke, today. Samurai, at least, became rather well known through association of Akira Kurosawa's samurai films preceding Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï, somewhat.

I understand the point about Jef sticking out, but truthfully, while hats were on their way out of mainstream fashion completely (this was 1967, or 1968 according to a Melville interview of the film's intended year), a trench coat was not unusual to wear in what looked to be quite rainy and cold Paris within the film. Jef should have worn his darker coat for the assassination, the one which he wore during the last half of the film, as he would have blended in with the nightclub crowd better. The hat may have best been left in the car, as well. I believe this movie was intended to project more visual style, versus absolutely representing the most practical approach an assassin could take, however.

Le Samouraï, 1967
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJvARzmEprU

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

I think he could be considered a ronin.