New Acquisition: Dersu Uzala (1975)

 

New Aquisition: Shichinin no samurai (1954)

 

Kumonosu-jô (1957)

 

Throne of Blood (Kumonosu-jō) cast and crew photo taken in 1956

Shichinin no samurai (1954)

 

New acquisition: Rashômon (1950)

 

Rashômon (1950)

 

Ikiru (1952)

Yôjinbô (1961)

A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town.

Highly influential, much copied Kurosawa masterpiece is flawlessly scripted and staged, tough, very violent and witty, and Mifune plays as if he was born for the role.

Halliwell****: "Masterful, beautifully composed, witty movie that inspired the 'spaghetti Western' cycle when it was remade by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars."

Maltin****: "Superb tongue-in-cheek samurai picture, the plot of which resembles a Western; Mifune is perfection as samurai...Beautiful on all counts..."

Kagemusha (1980)

A petty thief with an utter resemblance to a samurai warlord is hired as the lord's double, and when the warlord later dies the thief is forced to take up arms in his place.

From memory: A grand Japanese epic making elaborately made like a masterpiece painting; a master director at the peak of his art; the battle scenes are awe-inspiring.

Halliwell***: "Fascinating Japanese epic centring on stately ritual and court intrigue, with the occasional battle for spectacular action; one of the director's most impressive works."

Maltin***: "Grand combination of humanism and spectacle from a great filmmaker in the twilight of his career."

Last Man Standing (1996)

A drifting gunslinger-for-hire finds himself in the middle of an ongoing war between the Irish and Italian mafia in a Prohibition era ghost town.

Yet another remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo is an interesting, but not fully satisfying mixture of genres, especially of Western and gangster movie; good star cast and expertise direction make it watchable, though.

Halliwell*: "A Hollywood Western influenced by other schools of film-making. The wit and charm of Kurosawa's original, Yojimbo, has been replaced by a raw energy and gunfights in the style of John Woo; but its glum, conscienceless protagonist lacks the style of Toshirô Mifune or even Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti Western version, A Fistful of Dollars."

Maltin**: "...rife with gunplay, but overcome by sheers boredom."

Tengoku to jigoku (1963)

Akira Kurosawa

 

Bio:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Kurosawa

Hakuchi (1951)

Yôjinbô (1961)

On the set: Akira Kurosawa and Toshirô Mifune

Shichinin no samurai (1954)

On the set: Akira Kurosawa

Akahige (1965)

On the set: Toshiro Mifune and Akira Kurosawa