Kumonosu-jô (1957)

 

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

Shichinin no samurai (1954)

 

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..."

1941 (1979)

Hysterical Californians prepare for a Japanese invasion in the days after Pearl Harbor.

From memory: Monstrously overblown spoof does have lots of brilliant bits and pieces and is occasionally funny, but, in every aspect, there is simply too much going on so that you really can take it all in

Halliwell*: "Absurdly over-budgeted manic farce which substitutes noise for wit and slapstick for comedy; it fails on every level."

Maltin**1/2: "Gargantuan comedy from the bigger-is-funnier school of filmmaking. Some excellent vignettes and dazzling special effects..., but on the whole suffers from overkill."

Araki Mataemon: Kettô kagiya no tsuji (1952)

Yôjinbô (1961)

On the set: Akira Kurosawa and Toshirô Mifune

Akahige (1965)

On the set: Toshiro Mifune and Akira Kurosawa