Cliché-Watch: Kurosawa's Grave Spinning

Welcome to Cliché-Watch, a feature that I just came up with to call attention to some of the worst use of clichés in the video game media.



This edition of Cliché-Watch came about when I noticed two different sources talking about acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa 'spinning in his grave' in reviews of Sammy's Seven Samurai 20XX. The first was the latest issue of EGM, where reviewer Jon D said "I expect Seven Samurai Director Akira Kurosawa's grave is equipped with some sort of industrial centrifuge to accommodate the amount of spinning he's doing right about now," (May 2004, p.96). The next reference came while watching Tech TV's X-Play. "Hear that distant sound?," co-host Morgan Webb asked, "That's Kurosawa spinning in his grave!"



I happened to see the X-Play reference about one hour after I read the EGM reference, which made the repetition stand out in my mind. It got me wondering: were these two isolated incidents of an overused cliché, or was it more prevalent than that?



A few Google searches later, I found that it was indeed more prevalent:

• NetJak probably gets the award for the first use of the cliché, saying way back in their E3 2003 report that the idea is "a disgrace to the movie it stole the title from. I don't even like the original Seven Samurai and I still Kurosawa would be rolling in his grave to see this much liberty taken with his work. I mean...robots? Come on!"





• EuroGamer threw in what seemed like an afterthought reference to Kurosawa-spinning in a story about Koei's Samurai Warriors: "Time may prove us wrong, but, judging by the rumble of Akira Kurosawa's spinning corpse, we doubt it."
  
  
  
  
• Japan Today gets the award for most creative mangling of the cliché, saying in a commentary piece that, "Somewhere in Japan, Akira Kurosawa's bones are rolling over in their urn."





• The San Francisco Chronicle was the biggest name offender I could find, saying in a review that "Kurosawa may not be turning in his grave, but he's probably scratching his head."





• Like Anna Karina's Sweater proves that it's not only the big name video game sources using the cliché. A post on the film-centric blog is titled That's the sound of Akira Kurosawa turning in his grave.

My best advice on cliché's like these would be to use them sparingly. Even the best writers fall prey to a common turn-of-phrase sometimes, but overuse can make your writing seem bland and uninteresting. Try to be conscious of your cliché use when you write, and try to replace them with a more clever replacement when you notice them.