you clearly see that in one clip of 4-5 seconds alone each man killed 3-4 each, and u had 30-40 minutes of pure swordfighting in here. In total each men killed about 30-50 people each, when i tried counting.
You may be right to some extent, but I think you also ignore some factors.
1. During the battle there are lot of time they don't kill enemies
I mean, they were running, chasing, hiding, setting up traps, etc.
If one can kill a handful of enemies within a few seconds,
it doesn't mean he keeps doing it every few seconds.
(Sometimes they were just staring at each other for a long time.)
2. The killing ability varies by samurai.
Some kill more than others.
If you see one samurai killed 30-50 on screen it doesn't mean others did the same off screen.
3. This is rather nitpicking, but you have to be careful to "count" deaths on screen.
If you see a samurai swings his sword to his opponent and he's down, it doesn't necessarily mean he's killed.
Some of the 13 samurai kept fighting after injured, so why not their enemies?
4. They are not "13" throughout the battle
This is my main point.
Most of them were killed too.
The more they lost their members, the less enemies they could kill.
12 out of the 13 were killed during the battle.
(We saw another survivor at the end but that one didn't return until it's over,
so effectively they lost 12.)
Suppose they were killed one by one at constant rate,
and every samurai has the same killing potential.
T: Total number of enemies killed
N: the Number of enemies killed by the samurai who dies first
L: the number of enemies killed by the Last samurai standing (= N * 13)
T = (13 * N) + (12 * N) + .... + (2 * N) + (1 * N)
= 13! * N
= 91 * N
thus
N = T / 91
If T = 200 then N = 2.19: L = 28.57
If T = 250 then N = 2.74: L = 35.71
If T = 300 then N = 3.296: L = 42.85
If we only see Ls, they are not that different from your observation
"each men killed about 30-50 people each"
I guess you forgot those who killed less, impressed by those who killed more.
Of course this is very, very simplified calculation,
and far from what we actually saw in the movie.
If my memory serves (I've seen this movie only once),
most of the 13 survived halfway through the battle.
And the samurai who died first probably killed more enemies than Ns above.
But my point is it's not simply (30 * 13) or (50 * 13).
Just another POV.
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shirkosafari
11 years ago
I know what you are getting it, and I thought about all of that myself. But the fact remains that they all had to have an average kill of 10 each to finish the job (that means many could only kill 1 samurai, and someone else 40-50). But that wasn't the case. I counted the kills of each samurai on-screen. And if we are to suppose that they didn't kill anyone off-screen (which is pretty preposterous. In addition, they killed 70 people with only arrows, and that was certainly not 70 kills "on-screen"), the on-screen kills are still too high. As I said, the on-screen average-kill was about 30-50 (This number is already pretty low, as I wanted to state my points -- so we could say any eventual injury has been taken count of). The number of enemies killed is still far beyond what we are supposed to believe.
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random_beef
11 years ago
You are thinking that every cut scene was happening one after te other. Those scenes could be all in the space of 5 minutes. The town wasn't that big. Perhaps there wasn't any off screen deaths.
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shirkosafari
11 years ago
That's why I decided (although I believe it to be unfair) to not add numbers that we didn't see: I only counted the on-screen deaths, and the on-screen deaths were far higher than what we were supposed to believe.
This post should have been unnecessary, had you only read my former post:
"And if we are to suppose that they didn't kill anyone off-screen (...) the on-screen kills are still too high.''
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afterburns
11 years ago
"... what we were supposed to believe."
Aside from your obsessive concern with counting and your mis-counting, what, just what are we "supposed to believe" ? Who decides beliefs. Stick with ideas. Thoughts.
Over 200 is an infinite amount. The film is much more than a tally of kills. You seem still misguided and blinded by numbers miscalculated.
Do you count the number of pasta that is in a dish? It all seems unwaveringly silly as well as wrong.
Aristocratically yours, :-P
KIAI ... please.
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shirkosafari
11 years ago
By "what were supposed to believe", I was referring to what the film was making us believe. Was that so hard to understand? And the idea of "over 200" being an infinite number is ridiculous. If you see an army of 300, or over 300, you won't shout "over 200 people" to your gang. No one does that. It's obvious that he meant somewhere around 200-220. I, however, was being generous when I allowed us to think that it was somewhere around 300.
And you pointing to my counting as a mistake, without offering any argument to back it up, is also invalid. Go back to the film and count the bodies yourself. Then come back to me and tell me whether I'm wrong or not.
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shirkosafari
11 years ago
By "what were supposed to believe", I was referring to what the film was making us believe. Was that so hard to understand? And the idea of "over 200" being an infinite number is ridiculous. If you see an army of 300, or over 300, you won't shout "over 200 people" to your gang. No one does that. It's obvious that he meant somewhere around 200-220. I, however, was being generous when I allowed us to think that it was somewhere around 300 (which is the greatest, and even greater in my opinion, "stretch" you can make by the sentence "over 200").
And you pointing to my counting as a mistake, without offering any argument or facts from your own counting to back it up, is also invalid. Go back to the film and count the body-counts yourself. Then come back to me and tell me whether I'm wrong or not.
Edit: Here is a description from Wikipedia:
"(...)The next morning the assassins discover that Naritsugu is heading toward the village but with almost two hundred men(...)".
The Japenese Wikipedia-page noted the similar count. Notice how they are saying: "ALMOST TWO HUNDRED MEN." And me, being overly generous by letting it be 300, am being target of criticism from people like you.
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afterburns
11 years ago
Hey! We obviously have different approaches, not the least being I attend to the film in the present tense. You discuss it in the past tense - another failure on your approach.
"I was referring to what the film was making us believe."
Again, the past tense. We ARE having a discussion. And we diverge. There is no "us" in belief. We have different approaches.
And yet again, the "almost" is not correct. Wiki has anyone contributing and is not a respected citation for serious argument.
OVER 200 is not a definite figure. Period. Any "count" is flawed at the outset and destined to be ... indeterminate. QED.
KIAI ... please.
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shirkosafari
11 years ago
Your argument of "over 200" is untrue, and you know it. If something is over 200, it certainly doesn't mean over 300 (why else would they then say 200, and not 300). And logically it wouldn't even reach 250 (as this itself is a standard you could set, by for example saying "over 250"). I, however, was pretty generous by allowing the number to be about 300.
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random_beef
11 years ago
I did read it, I counted it any yeah there was a bit more than anticipated. However I don't really count the quick recon counting of samurai's as a legit source.
This movie could have had more than 200. More than 300.
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