Gate of Hell (1954)

This Japanese Samurai film is about obsession and also about sacrifice for true love.   A samurai warrior rescues the fiancee of a lord and in doing so falls in love with her.  When he discovers that she is meant for another, he will go to great lengths to win her back, basically becoming a samurai stalker.  Shot in color with beautiful effect, it's an impressive film for 1954 so you can see why it won the seventh best foreign language film Academy award that year.  It's nowhere near as good as  Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (released months later) but I'm sure it being in color made it seem like the best choice (being that each country can only submit one film).  Too bad too because of the seven theme, that said you can't compare the two; this one is more dramatic and deals with a love triangle while the other is basically an action film.  For the longest time this one has been unavailable until recently.  As soon as Netflix had it available I ordered it and I'm glad to have seen it.  I love samurai movies and this one did not let me down.   Grade: A-