If you are the type of person viewed by others as strage because of your attraction for dubbed, 60s-era, b&w Samurai movies (if not for many other reasons), you will be buoyed by the knowledge presented in this book: That the directors and scriptwriters who produced many of these chambarra were beyond talented, and that the subject matter (of bushido and personal relationships within the cultural and personal codes of conduct of historical Japan) is a worthy lense for the artistic presentation/examination of the human condition.

I believe that's one honkin' runon sentence, and quite against recommended practice, but there it is.

This book will be invaluable for the not-so-knowledgeable chambarra enthusiast who, like me, still needs a little help to differentiate the wheat from the chaff...and the gold from the wheat, for that matter. That there is plenty of chaff is substantiated by the hundreds-long fimlography of Samurai films through the 80s appended. The representative titles in the "Foreign" section of too many video stores would seem to come randomly from this list. As in America, some of the most popular product was pretty much crap, and some of the best directors occasionally had modest success with good work.

The book is a great guide to the directors whose work exhibits strong craft and intellectual depth. Knowing to look for Gosha or Kobiyashi in a selection of unknown-but-presumably-random quality has proven very rewarding.

NOTE: The book is very strong on analysis of their cinematographic choices and techniques. And when I say "strong", I mean there's huge gobs of it. Silver certainly sounds competent, but this level of analysis will be of greater or lesser interest to different people, depending on how deeply one has sunk into Le Pit du Cineasterie.