A challenge of honour was a Dutch neofolk project existing from 2001 to 2011. It was started by the Johan König (the name does not sound Dutch) and continued in the first year by Peter Savelkoul (also no Dutch name). When König quit for personal reasons, Savelkoul kept the project going, releasing nine albums under different record companies. This album is an homage to Kurosawa’s movie of the same name.
It was released in 2005, and around that time I had a fascination with Kurosawa myself. I got some DVDs from a friend so I could see most of his movies, starting with the oldest. Each of them had comments by a film historian, it made all of them very interesting to watch. When movies are that old, it pays off to hear some expert’s take in them. Though that knowledge was not able to connect me to this music. Apart from the titles following the scenes in the movie, I really don’t see any connection.