Dublin pub review

I think I just found what may be a perfect bar for me – one with O’Haras beer on draught and Seven Samurai on constant rotation!

I spent nearly four hours in the cinema last evening on a whim – watching the new print of the amazing Les Enfants du Paradis (strongly recommended). I was pretty thirsty after hours of overwrought theatrical French passion, so I thought I’d try a new small bar in the center of Dublin (which a Japanese friend had told me about, while telling me she didn’t really like it ‘too fake, cocktails too expensive’).

The Izakaya Bar is fine, nothing very special except that I was of course delighted to see that Seven Samurai was showing on the TV over the bar and the huge screen at the back. And not just any version, but (if I’m not mistaken) the latest Criterion Blu-Ray. So I had more than one drink while enjoying it 🙂

I asked the barman what films they showed, he said (with a sigh) that while they had a large dvd collection, the owner insisted on having Seven Samurai on nearly every night. How could you not love a place that does that? Watching it in a cinema is best after all, but watching on a big screen with a constant supply of rather good drinks seems a good second best.

I don’t like beer, but I still want to visit this bar! 😆

The idea of playing films on the background actually intrigues me. I have a few friends who do that — they just pop in a DVD or blu-ray to play on the background while they work. In a sense, I suppose it shouldn’t be any stranger than me playing music on the background while working, but I still find it quite a curious habit. In a pub setting, I can see how much fun it could be — watching bits of films together while carrying a conversation, especially if you already know the film by heart.

As for me, I don’t drink much, but I’d like to visit this bar as well! Actually, it makes me rather wish all of us could gather there to discuss Seven Samurai.

As an aside: you all know that I love that movie, but I think even I’d be longing for some variety after awhile and want to pull out the copy of The Lower Depths that I received from Christmas, or my copy of Yojimbo or Throne of Blood. Yes, I’m not so slyly boasting about having received a Kurosawa movie — and a bonus Jean Renoir movie, because his version is packaged with it as well — for Christmas.

Lawless

As for me, I don’t drink much, but I’d like to visit this bar as well! Actually, it makes me rather wish all of us could gather there to discuss Seven Samurai.

What a marvelous idea. I hope we all do manage that one day, if not in this bar there somewhere similar.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Thanks, and happy new year to you too, Ugetsu! I’m sorry to hear about your injury (from another thread). If it makes you feel any better, I’m house-bound as well, suffering from my traditional new year’s flu (fourth year in a row!).

Dublin sounds like a good place to meet in, I’d definitely be in for that. 🙂

Hope you get well soon Vili, nothing worse than a flu on a holiday weekend (especially when everyone assumes you are lying, and you just have a hangover 😉 ).

Dublin sounds like a good place to meet in, I’d definitely be in for that.

Well, if we fail to get together in Japan sometime (a pity the Kurosawa 100 was such a debacle, it would have been perfect for a meet-up), then Ireland, as another windy wet remote island would be a good second choice 😉 )

I’d certainly check that out if I ever made it to Dublin ,

I believe Kurosawa was a John Ford fan , and they love John Ford’s Irish connections on the Emerald Isle johnfordireland

So that makes another sort of thin Kurosawa /Ireland connection.

Happy new year everyone

longstone

So that makes another sort of thin Kurosawa /Ireland connection.

A thin connection is usually enough for most Irish people to decide he’s one of our own! Fords connection to Ireland was tenuous, and The Quiet Man is a ridiculous piece of fluff in many ways, but Irish people still love that film. It is easily the most shown film in any Irish old folks home I’ve ever visited.

Actually, in idle moments I’ve often wondered what Kurosawa would have done with a film adaption of one of W.B Yeats plays At the Hawks Well and The Death of Cuchulainn, both written early in the 20th Century and the first western plays so far as I know to incorporate Noh. When I first saw Throne of Blood I found it strikingly similar to a performance of The Death of Cuchulainn (a play about the death of a great mythological warrior hero) I’d seen when I was a student in the 1980’s. The play very rarely performed, mainly I think because the Noh characterisations are a bit of a mystery to most modern actors.

Happy New Year all! Ugetsu, ironically I just wrote a review (about two hours ago) for the “Dublin Pub”-one in Florence, though!!!!!

I say, it would be lovely to meet there, or Ugetsu’s new hangout in Dublin or anywhere and chat face-to-face a out our beloved Kurosawa!

Well, if and when we ever do get together, lets just make sure its a bar with a big screen, we can bring our own dvd, the bar will just have to put it on if it wants our custom!