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Answer one of the questions below:

  1. Compare/contrast an eastern and a western. You can make a comparison of a literal re-make (Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars, Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven, or you can choose any samurai film and compare and contrast it with whatever traditional western film you choose. Obviously language, setting, costumes will be different, but what subtler differences are there in story, in characterization? See if you can get a sense of what the chief values and attitudes and even historical perspectives of each work are.

  2. There's no reason to limit this discussion to just eastern films that mirror the western genre. Many movies originating in Asia are re-made in the U.S. and vice-versa. A few that you might consider areThe Hidden Fortress (Japan 1958) and Star Wars: A New Hope (U.S. 1977), Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (Taiwan 1994) and Tortilla Soup (U.S. 2001), Ringu (Japan 1998) and The Ring (U.S. 2002), City on Fire (China 1987) and Reservoir Dogs (1992), Il Mare (Korea 2000) and The Lake House (U.S. 2006), etc.

    If you choose to compare/contrast one of these (or another) movie, do not just look at superficial similarities and differences (bits of plot that are the same or different and such); instead, look at how ideas have changed; how character traits change; how major plot development changes. Then discuss how the changes reflect different values or attitudes or cultural considerations.

  3. Although it's clearly not a traditional western (or eastern), Tampopo is often called the first "ramen western" because it has many of the features of a traditional western (like Shane) or one of the Sergio Leoni type "spaghetti westerns" (like The Good, The Bad, The Ugly). How does this noodle-shop movie, on one level, mirror some of the characteristics and conventions of a traditional western? You'll want to compare scenes, character types, and so on from the movie with scenes from a wesern of your choice.

  4. Finally, there is actually another film movement from Korea called the "ramen western"; one of the prime examples of this newer movement is South Korean director Ji-woon Kim’s The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008). Compare and contrast this with Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (1966).