Sometimes it seemed as if that was all there were. All there ever had been. All there ever would be. There was this scrap of earth — just a big rock, really. And there was a cave in the rock, which ...

For Westerners unschooled in the way of the movie samurai, the classic image of the loyal retainer doubtless looks something like Obi-Wan Kenobi -- or the late John Belushi. A genial riff on the great ...

Our May book takes us on the most action-packed adventure yet for NPR's Backseat Book Club. In the Newbery Honor-winning Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus, we meet 14-year-old Manjiro, a Japanese boy ...

The Hidden Blade: Military drama. Starring Masatoshi Nagase, Takako Matsu and Yukiyoshi Ozawa. Directed by Yoji Yamada. (In Japanese with English subtitles. Not rated. 132 minutes.) The samurai movie ...

If you want to see Japanese swords and armour — and you don’t happen to have a time machine — you’ll usually need to head to a museum. However, we recently came across an astounding collection of ...

If you’re looking for an epic and blood-drenched ronin movie fraught with dozens of sweeping sword-fighting set-pieces, debased honor, and the stinging ring of swooping kata on bone, you might want to ...

Some are born great, and some are born lowly, get shipwrecked, live in exile and brave a perilous return home to achieve greatness. Such was the astonishing true trajectory of Manjiro, a 19th-century ...