Onions.  They give you bad breath but adds flavor to the food we eat.  Have you ever peeled one?  Peel the rough skin and reveal a fresh moist layer.  Peel that and there’s another silky layer.  On and on.

In writing my book, I purposefully laid in layers to give it a sense of depth.  On the surface, it’s a fast-paced, action packed, page turner (damn, I’m conceited).  There’s sex.  There’s mayhem.  Want betrayal?  You got it.  Want love?  You got it.

Slice under that superficial layer and you’ll find a deeper understanding of the story.  Billowing clouds may reflect a character’s painful conflict within.  Heat from a fire reflecting off someone’s clothes may echo the character’s anger.  Wind may symbolize a character’s dominance over their lands.

In 1954 a renowned filmmaker released what’s considered one of the best films ever made:  Seven Samurai.  It’s about a Japanese farming village, constantly beseiged and pillaged by an army of bandits, recruits seven independent samurai to defend it.

Akira Kurosawa’s films have influenced great directors such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.  In fact, Star Wars was heavily influenced by The Hidden Fortress, a Kurosawa film.

I have to admit, when I watched Seven Samurai, I was like, “What da hell?”

I was caught off guard by the soundtrack, pacing and language (despite my slanty eyes, I don’t speak Japanese).  I did drag myself through the length of the film, all three hours and forty-five minutes.

Luckily, I had bought The Criterion Collection of the film.  There are tons of lectures on the DVD discs, and I listened to all of them, wanting to learn everything I could.  What I learned had a profound effect on me and my writing.  Or is it my writing and I?

Consolidating Kurosawa’s genius would be difficult and insulting.  But here I go.  He controlled everything because everything in his films had a purpose, a reason.  Every word, action, shadow, even the swipe or fading to the next scene meant something.  If someone broke wind, there was a purpose.  Unless it was silent but deadly.

The most interesting character is Kikuchiyo, played by Toshiro Mifune.  He doesn’t exactly look like a samurai, nor does he walk like one.  So is he a samurai?  He lugs his extra long sword on his shoulder instead of holstering it around his waist like the other six.  What does this say about Kikuchiyo?  Is he compensating for something?  Or is there a deeper story within the character?

In his dramatic scene, Kikuchiyo admits he was once a villager and somehow found his way to samuraism. (Is that even a word?)  This didn’t happen in those days of Japan.  It was difficult enough to move up the ranks of the samurai.  And admitting you were once a villager was like admitting you’re a woman, when you’re really a man, but without the operation.

The lectures in the special features stated Kikuchiyo symbolized the filmmaker, Kurosawa.  His views were somehow reminiscent of Kikuchiyo and his rise in society and that Japan had moved into the modern era.  This is further symbolized when each samurai is killed by a modern weapon:  the gun.  Once the villagers were saved, they continued their lives giving any thought to their saviors.  We see the surviving samurai walk from the cemetery where their comrades were buried and out to the horizon, never to return.

I rewatched the film many times, and I grew to love it. The story density is amazing.

It’s interesting to see how we clamor to the magazine stands to find out the latest on celebrities.  What atrocities have they committed?  But if we were truly curious about who they were, all we’d have to do is turn to their art.

For art is the language of the soul.

Last night was one of those nights.  I couldn’t sleep.  No diet Coke.  No late night coffee runs.  No chocolate.  Nothing that would turn me into an insomniac.  In fact, I’ve had more nights of insomnia in the past few years than in my whole life.  Which is interesting.

My sister had a Feng Shui master come into the house.  The master saw my room and asked my sister if I was sleeping well.  My sister didn’t know.  The master masterfully suggested in her wisest of wisdom that I move my bed to another wall, turn it so my feet would point east, and my sleeping problems would be solved.

All righty then.

One day, I came home and found my bed pushed against the other wall.  At the time, I didn’t know why.  Nor did I know a Feng Shui master had wisely assessed my sleeping arrangements, using thousands of years of Feng Shui know how.

That night I lay my head down to sleep.  My feet pointed east, though I normally don’t make a note of where my feet point.  An hour goes by, and I’m like, WTF mate?  I’m still awake.  It usually takes me fifteen minutes to say hello to the sandman.

Another hour goes by.  Crap!

An hour later I’m still freakin’ awake.

I got two hours of sleep that night.  I remember because it was the start of a line of sleepless nights.  A month later my sister was kind enough to inform me of what the master had suggested.  A few years had passed since then.

I had turned up my workout up a notch yesterday.  Summer is coming so I gotta look nice for the ladies.  When I went to bed, my body was desperate for much needed rest.  An hour goes by and I’m awake.  But a few minutes later Mr. Sandman was knocking on my door.  Not only was he knocking on my door, but the floor just outside my room creaked.

I listened.

Nothing.  House was settling.

I twisted and turned, found a comfortable spot, and began to let the bits of consciousness drip away.

Floorboards creaked.  Someone was walking around the hallway.

My sister went to sleep before I did, so I knew it wasn’t her.  Hallway light wasn’t on because it didn’t creep under my door.

I sat up and my bed squeaked.

The steps stopped.

I could feel my heart hitting my chest.

Floorboards creaked again, I heard shuffling outside, and it sounded as if someone was walking on the roof.  I was surrounded!

I jumped off my bed, grabbed a katana—Samurai sword—and waited for whomever to barge through my shut door.

C’mon, man.  My hand squeezed the hilt.  I could see the path of the sword.  C’mon!

No one came in.  The steps disappeared.

I turned on the light, opened my door.  No one stood outside.  I proceeded to check the whole house with sword in hand.  There were no signs anyone was in the house.  I eased back upstairs.

Here’s the funny part.

My Samurai sword is not real.  The blade is not tempered steel.  If there were a Samurai in my house, his katana would slice through mine like buttah.  But what are the chances a Samurai would show up in my house?

Second, my fake sword is so unbalanced that if I swung and missed, it’d take me a hundred years to recover.

Third, beyond swinging the sword like a bat, my skills with a katana is like my skills of levitation.  Non-existent.

All this because my sister listened to a Feng Shui master.  And I never found the source of the ruckus.

When I was doing research for my book, I’d read books on Vikings, Native American Indians and Samurais. There was also a lifetime of Chinese period soap operas lurking in my head that made its way on paper. My brother pointed out a common theme that I used without knowing it in my episodes.

Then I ventured down to individuals such as Miyamoto Musashi, Geronimo, and Ibn Fadlan.  I’ve also used Sun Tzu’s Art of War and Robert Greene’s The 33 Strategies of War.  I then obsessed over movies such as Braveheart, the events at the Battle for Thermopile and the History Channel.

The Samurai culture has always interested me.  In my research there was a movie I came across called The Twilight Samurai.  I immediately fell in love with it.  So much so that I bought a copy of it.  Not download it!  Bought.  It stars Hiroyuki Sanada.  If you’ve seen Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai, then you’ve seen Sanada.  He was the one who taught Cruise’s character how to sword fight.

Twilight won a dozen Japanese awards and was nominated best foreign language film in the 2002 Academy Awards.

Despite the fact that Sanada plays a low ranking Samurai, I fell in love with the character.  The character is widowed, humble to a fault, works a low paying job, loves raising his two daughters, one of the best Samurais, cares nothing for advancement, and dreams of working on his own farm.  Empathy techniques at work?

The romance in the movie works so well, tons of chemistry, and no sex scenes.  I like sex scenes, don’t get me wrong, like in a porno.  But it seems a lot of movies use sex to get the movie goer to come–ahem–instead of using it as a tool to forward the romantic story.

Take The Matrix as an example.  Look at the special effects, which the movie required.  Most of it, if not all, wasn’t terribly advanced or over done for it’s time.  Special effects was used as a tool to forward the plot, never used to get the movie goer to come.

One thing that really caught me about Twilight is there seems to be no real antagonist.  Where’s Darth Samurai?  Then it occurred to me.  The antagonist was society.  The hero struggles with money, raising his daughters, living with his senile mother and the disrespect the other Samurai.  He’s constantly badgered to remarry, to advance, to succumb to everyday standards.

His response?

“I’m too cool for ya’ll.”

Not really.  But he does resist it all.  Then comes his childhood love.  She is the monkey wrench to his well oiled machine.  From there, the story develops well, the romance progresses with all its angst, using the sign of the times to present obstacles, and there’s enough action to help the story along.  Though the sword fighting is not central to the movie.

If you like Samurai movies, rent this.  You’ll love it.