www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/samurai/
It was on kqed last night - I only caught it because somebody mentioned in on aikiweb.
My only complaints are very minor:
1. It had some silly filler in Ken Burns style of moving versions of old art
2. It was rather incoherent in throwing in stuff about samurai movies and Westerns influencing each other when they could have talked about militarism or something - its that "find a pop audience" thing I guess
3. I really wished it had identify the ryu of the folks they showed training
The most important and interesting thing was getting to watch the whole process from the making of the raw steel from iron and charcoal through the forging of the blade and the polishing - just WONDERFUL - and the footage/interviews w/ some scientists at Lehigh Univ putting it into the context of properites of metal and the atomic structure of the blade.
Keep an eye out for reruns.
It was on kqed last night - I only caught it because somebody mentioned in on aikiweb.
My only complaints are very minor:
1. It had some silly filler in Ken Burns style of moving versions of old art
2. It was rather incoherent in throwing in stuff about samurai movies and Westerns influencing each other when they could have talked about militarism or something - its that "find a pop audience" thing I guess
3. I really wished it had identify the ryu of the folks they showed training
The most important and interesting thing was getting to watch the whole process from the making of the raw steel from iron and charcoal through the forging of the blade and the polishing - just WONDERFUL - and the footage/interviews w/ some scientists at Lehigh Univ putting it into the context of properites of metal and the atomic structure of the blade.
Keep an eye out for reruns.
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Re: Show about samurai swords
Thu, October 11, 2007 - 7:39 PMI watched it as well. Yes. It had some odd references to westerns and didn't enlighten the view of the location or style of the practitioners. Still, a very good primer on swords, metal composition, some history and cultural characters. They covered a lot of material in a short show. I enjoyed it.
