ACF 962: Toshiro Mifune remembered

Today marks the 91st birthday of Toshiro Mifune, almost certainly Japan's most famous actor. He was born on April 1, 1920 in Tsingtao, China (now Qindao, Shandong, China), where his family had emigrated from northern Japan and where his father was a commercial photographer. Mifune himself served in the Aerial Photography unit of the Japanese army, and was repatriated to Japan in 1946.

He was accepted as a "new face" at Toho Productions in 1947. His IMDb entry lists 181 films that he appeared in, though of course he is most well-known for and will always be primarily associated with the numerous films he starred in that were directed by Akira Kurosawa. These ranged from Drunken Angel (1948), Mifune's third film, through Red Beard (1965).

Mifune died on December 24, 1997.

Here are images of Mifune in four of Kurosawa's films:

As Matsunaga in Drunken Angel / Yoidore tenshi (1948)

As Detective Murakami in Stray Dog / Nora inu (1949),
withTakeshi Shimura, left

As Tajomaru in Rashomon (1950), with Machiko Kyo

As Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai / Shichinin no Samurai (1954)

ACF 895: Reminder - "The Sword of Doom" screens tonight at Japan Society (NY)

The Sword of Doom / Dai-bosatsu toge
Directed by Kihachi Okamoto
Japan, 1966, 119 minutes
When: Friday, February 18, 2011, at 7:30 PM
Where: Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, New York, NY
(Between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

The soul is the sword.
Study the soul to know the sword
Evil mind, evil sword.
- Instructor and master swordsman Toranosuke Shimada (Toshiro Mifune)

Kihachi Okamoto's chambara classic The Sword of Doom, which stars Tatsuya Nakadai and features Toshiro Mifune in a significant role, will be shown tonight at Japan Society, NY.

For my review of The Sword of Doom which appeared earlier this week, click here.

Buy Tickets Online for Friday's screening or call the Japan Society Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon. - Fri. 11 am - 6 pm, Weekends 11 am - 5 pm.

And for a really good, recent New York Times article about samurai films written by Wendell Jamieson, in which The Sword of Doom looms large, click here.

ACF 818: Kurosawa / Mifune film series in San Francisco through January 6th, 2011

Scene from Drunken Angel,
the first Kurosawa film in which Mifune starred

BEAT THE HOLIDAY DOLDRUMS VIZ CINEMA’S
KUROSAWA x MIFUNE FILM FESTIVAL

Seven Films Playing Thru January 6th At The Bay Area Theatre Showcase
Iconic Director Akira Kurosawa And Actor Toshiro Mifune

I received this information a bit too late for some of the earliest screenings, but there are plenty of screenings left. So those of you in the San Francisco environs, don't miss this opportunity to see as many of these films as you can. They are, after all, by one of cinema's greatest all time director/actor combinations - Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune! And while all of these films are also available from The Criterion Collection, they're best seen in a theater whenever possible.

VIZ Cinema, the nation’s only movie theatre dedicated to Japanese film, concludes 2010 with Mifune x Kurosawa, a special new festival celebrating the work of iconic director Akira Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune beginning Saturday, December 18th and running until Thursday, January 6th.

Escape holiday doldrums with seven films including Red Beard, The Idiot, The Lower Depths, High And Low, Stray Dog, Drunken Angel, and the classic action masterpiece, Seven Samurai, which will be presented with a New Year’s reception party on January 2nd. Tickets to all screenings are $10.00 each; screening times and more details are available at: www.vizcinema.com.

Red Beard, Saturday, 12/18 – Sunday, 12/26
(1965, 185 minutes, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)
Red Beard chronicles the tumultuous relationship between an arrogant young doctor and a compassionate clinic director. Toshiro Mifune, in his last role for Kurosawa, gives a powerhouse performance as the dignified yet empathic director who guides his pupil to maturity.

The Idiot, Saturday, 12/18 – Thursday, 12/23
(1965, 185 minutes, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)
The Idiot, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s nineteenth-century masterpiece about a wayward, pure soul’s reintegration into society—updated by Kurosawa to capture Japan’s postwar aimlessness—was a victim of studio interference and, finally, public indifference.

The Lower Depths, Sunday, 12/19 – Monday, 12/27
(1957, 125 minutes, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)
Mifune and Kurosawa transform Maxim Gorky’s classic proletariat play The Lower Depths in their own way firmly situated in the postwar world. Remaining faithful to the original with its focus on the conflict between illusion and reality, their film making styles converge to create unique masterpieces.

High And Low, Monday, 12/27 – Thursday, 1/6
(1957, 125 minutes, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential High and Low, a compelling race-against-time thriller and a penetrating portrait of contemporary Japanese society.

Stray Dog, Tuesday, 12/28 – Thursday, 1/6
(1949, 122min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)
When a pickpocket steals a rookie detective’s gun on a hot crowded bus, the cop goes undercover in a desperate attempt to right the wrong. Kurosawa’s thrilling noir probes the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.

Drunken Angel, Wednesday, 12/29 – Wednesday, 1/5
(1948, 98min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)
In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura’s jaded physician.

Seven Samurai, Sunday, 1/2 at 1:30pm
(1954, 207 minutes, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)
Kick-off 2011 with one of the most thrilling movie epics of all time, Seven Samurai! This three-hour ride featuring Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire eponymous warriors to protect them from the invading bandits. Screening will include a special New Year’s reception party.

VIZ Cinema is the nation’s only movie theatre devoted exclusively to Japanese film and anime. The 143-seat subterranean theatre is located in the basement of the NEW PEOPLE building and features plush seating, digital as well as 35mm projection, and a THX®-certified sound system.

About NEW PEOPLE
NEW PEOPLE offers the latest films, art, fashion and retail brands from Japan and is the creative vision of the J-Pop Center Project and VIZ Pictures, a distributor and producer of Japanese live action film. Located at 1746 Post Street, the 20,000 square foot structure features a striking 3-floor transparent glass façade that frames a fun and exotic new environment to engage the imagination into the 21st Century. A dedicated web site is also now available at: www.NewPeopleWorld.com.

ACF 655: VIZ Cinema celibrates Kurosawa's Samirai Classics in San Francisco

VIZ CINEMA CELEBRATES AKIRA KUROSAWA SAMURAI CLASSICS

IN SPECIAL AUGUST FILM SERIES

Bay Area Theater Presents A Rare Opportunity To Screen 6

Of The Visionary Director’s Most Iconic Films

VIZ Cinema and NEW PEOPLE are presenting Kurosawa On Sword Battles - Samurai Saga Volume 2, a new film series opening today, August 20th, marking the centennial birth of Japan’s most beloved film director – Akira Kurosawa – and celebrating nearly half a century of big screen samurai action and drama. General Admission Tickets: $10:00; No discounts apply.

Screening times and more details are available at: www.vizcinema.com.

Seven Samurai, August 20th – 22nd
(Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1954, 207min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

One of the most beloved films of all time, Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits. This three-hour ride, featuring legendary actors Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura, seamlessly weaves philosophy, entertainment, delicate human emotions and relentless action into a rich, evocative, and unforgettable tale of courage and hope.

Rashamon, August 21st – 25th
(Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1950, 88min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, Rashomon is perhaps the finest film ever to explore the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man’s murder and the rape of his wife. Toshiro Mifune gives another commanding performance in the eloquent masterwork that revolutionized film language and introduced Japanese cinema to the world.

Yojimbo, August 23rd – August 28th and also August 31st
(Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1961, 110min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

The incomparable Toshiro Mifune stars in Kurosawa’s visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo. To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage. Remade twice, by Sergio Leone and Walter Hill, this exhilarating genre-twister remains one of the most influential and entertaining films of all time.

Sanjuro, August 25th – August 30th
(Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1962, 96min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

Toshiro Mifune again swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa’s tightly paced, beautifully composed drama. In this companion piece to Yojimbo, jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan’s betrayer, and in the process turns their image of a “proper” samurai on its ear. Less brazen in tone than its predecessor but equally entertaining, this classic character’s return is a masterpiece in its own right.

Throne of Blood, August 28h – September 2nd
(Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1957, 109min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

One of the most celebrated screen adaptations of Shakespeare into film, Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood reimagines Macbeth in feudal Japan. Starring the director’s longtime collaborator Toshiro Mifune and the legendary Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife, the film tells of a valiant warrior’s savage rise to power and his ignominious fall. With Throne of Blood, Kurosawa fused one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies with the formal elements of Japanese Noh theater to make a Macbeth that is all his own – a classic tale of ambition and duplicity set against a ghostly landscape of fog and inescapable doom.

The Hidden Fortress, August 28h – September 2nd
(Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1958, 139min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

A general and a princess must dodge enemy clans while smuggling the royal treasure out of hostile territory with two bumbling, conniving peasants at their sides; it’s a spirited adventure that only Akira Kurosawa could create. Acknowledged as a primary influence on George Lucas’sStar Wars, The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa’s inimitably deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action and humanist compassion on an epic scale. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this landmark motion picture in a stunning, newly restored Tohoscope edition.

VIZ Cinema is the nation’s only movie theater devoted to Japanese film and anime. The 143-seat subterranean theater is located in the basement of the NEW PEOPLE building and features plush seating, digital as well as 35mm projection, and a THX®-certified sound system.

NEW PEOPLE offers the latest films, art, fashion and retail brands from Japan and is the creative vision of the J-Pop Center Project and VIZ Pictures, a distributor and producer of Japanese live action film. Located at 1746 Post Street, the 20,000 square foot structure features a striking 3-floor transparent glass façade that frames a fun and exotic new environment to engage the imagination into the 21st Century. A dedicated web site is also now available at: www.NewPeopleWorld.com.

ACF 520: Toshiro Mifune, April 1, 1920 - December 24, 1997

Here are images from four more Kurosawa films in which Mifune starred.

As Kiichi Nakajima in I Live in Fear / Ikimono no kiroky (1955)

As Taketori Washizu in Throne of Blood / Kumonosu-jo (1957)

As Kingo Gondo in High and Low / Tengoky to jigoku (1963)

As Dr. Kyojo Niide in Red Beard / Akahige (1965)

ACF 519: Toshiro Mifune remembered

Today marks the 90th birthday of Toshiro Mifune, almost certainly Japan's most famous actor. He was born on April 1, 1920 in Tsingtao, China (now Qindao, Shandong, China), where his family had emigrated from northern Japan and where his father was a commercial photographer. Mifune himself served in the Aerial Photography unit of the Japanese army, and was repatriated to Japan in 1946.

He was accepted as a "new face" at Toho Productions in 1947. His IMDb entry lists 181 films that he appeared in, though of course he is most well-known for and will always be primarily associated with the numerous films he starred in that were directed by Akira Kurosawa. These ranged from Drunken Angel (1948), Mifune's third film, through Red Beard (1965).

Mifune died on December 24, 1997.

Here are images of Mifune in four of Kurosawa's films:

As Matsunaga in Drunken Angel / Yoidore tenshi (1948)

As Detective Murakami in Stray Dog / Nora inu (1949),
withTakeshi Shimura, left

As Tajomaru in Rashomon (1950), with Machiko Kyo

As Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai / Shichinin no Samurai (1954)

ACF 445: Stray Dog kicks off Kurosawa centennial retrospective at NY's Film Forum

Stray Dog / Nora inu

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Japan, 1949, 122 min, b&w

March 23, 2010 will mark the 100th anniversary of Akira Kurosawa's birth. One of the many ways in which it is being celebrated is a centennial retrospective of many of his films at the Film Forum in New York.

Stray Dog will be the first film shown in the retrospective and it will run for nine days from January 6 - 14, 2010, with four shows daily. Toshiro Mifune (right in the photo above) stars as Murakami, a detective whose gun is stolen from him on a crowded bus. Takashi Shimura (left in the photo) is Detective Sato, his superior. Murakami is obsessed with recovering the weapon after it is used in a crime.

The film has a "there but for forture" theme as it smartly compares Detective Murakami and the criminal, both of whom were veterans of the war Japan had recently lost, but who had taken different paths in its aftermath. There's some fantastic hidden camera work taken in the black market streets of Tokyo.

For further info or to buy tickets online, click here.

And for those of you who, for one reason or another, can't make it to one of these screenings, there's a Criterion DVD of the film available that is outstanding, as one would expect.

ACF 286: Kurosawa's Drunken Angel

Drunken Angel / Yoidore tenshi

Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Starring Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune
Japan, 1948, 98 min.

Drunken Angel is of great significance for at least two reasons. As he wrote in Something Like An Autobiography, Kurosawa regarded it as the film in which he started to exhibit his own style. Equally important, it was the first Kurosawa film in which Mifune appeared. They would go on to make over a dozen more with one another, films that by all measures include almost all of those for which each of them are most well known.

The movie's title refers to Shimura's character, Doctor Sanada, a gruff alcoholic who runs a pathetic clinic alongside a fetid pond in which garbage is dumped. One night he is awakened to treat a young yakuza (gangster) named Matsunaga (Mifune) who has "injured his hand." In the course of treating him, Sanada realizes that Matsunaga probably has TB, a fairly widespread disease in post-war Japan.

Dr. Sanada orders children from the neighborhood not to play in

the filthy, disease breeding water of the pond.

Matsunada and Sanada are frequently at one another's throats -- both figuratively and literally. Matsunada engages in tough-guy, yakuza posturing, claiming he isn't concerned about possibly having TB because he doesn't fear death. Sanada repeatedly claims he'll have nothing to do with someone who won't take care of himself, but can't bring himself to give up on his reluctant patient because he reminds Sanada of what he himself was like as a young man.

Mifune with Reisaburo Yamamoto as Okata,

a higher ranking yakuza recently released from prison

I've watched the film at least three times to date, and expect to watch it again from time to time in the future. It may have been the first Kurosawa film I saw that was not a period piece. In any case, it certainly has one of the most memorable scenes I've ever seen in any film. It consists of Mifune, drunk and suffering from TB, his pompadour flying, jitterbugging in a dance hall. It's priceless and absolutely not to be missed.

Drunken Angel is available on a single disc DVD from The Criterion Collection. On-disc extras include an audio commentary featuring Japanese-film scholar Donald Richie, a 31-minute documentary on the making of Drunken Angel, and Kurosawa and the Censors, a new 25-minute video that sheds great insight into the challenges the director faced from the censorship policy of the U.S. occupying forces in post-WWII Japan. The DVD package also has a 28 page booklet with an insightful article by Asian film authority Ian Buruma and two chapters from Something Like An Autobiography that pertain to the film.

Overall, the aged film has been well-restored. However, there is often one very thin, vertical white line on the right side of the image. Sometimes there is more than one. But this should in no way dissuade you from buying, or at least renting, this very important, must-see film from early in Kurosawa's career.

ACF rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars (highly recommended)

(Note that the widescreen screenshot images above come from one of the video extras. The actual film is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio.)

ACF 160: "Sanujro" remake to get East Coast Premiere on 10/15/08

Sanjuro

Directed by Yoshimitsu Morita
Japan, 2007, 119 min.
Japanese with English subtitles
East Coast Premiere

Next Wednesday, October 15th, 2008, ANA (All Nippon Airways) will present the East Coast premiere of this remake of Akira Kurosawa's Sanjuro (1962). The original film starred Toshiro Mifune as Sanjuro Tsubaki. This remake features Yuji Oda (Bayside Shakedown, Whiteout) in the title role of the scruffy ronin who helps a group of idealistic youths fight corruption.

Director Yoshimitsu Morita's previous films include Lost Paradise and The Family Game. "I always wanted to revive Sanjuro and make a film about him with today's actors and actresses in Japan." he has said.

This remake, like the 1962 version. is based on the original script written by the legendary trio of Akira Kurosawa, Ryuzo Kikushima and Hideo Oguni.

To get on the list for this special screening, you must RSVP to:

http://www.newyork-tokyo.com/wp/sanjuro.

The film will be shown at:

The ImaginAsian
239 East 59th Street
New York, NY

Doors will open at 6:16 PM
Screening starts at 7:00 PM

This screening of Sanjuro is presented by ANA (All Nippon Airways) as Part 14 of its NIPPON EIGA film series.

ACF 056: Akira Kurosawa in the News

Toshiro Mifune as Matsunaga in
Akira Kurosawa's "Drunken Angel"
Japan, b&w, 1948

Three items related to Akira Kurosawa have recently come to my attention and should be of interest to any fan of Asian films.

First off, Kurosawa's Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi) is due to come out this month on Criterion DVD. This 1948 release was the first Kurosawa project in which Toshiro Mifune appeared; previously he'd been in three films by other directors.

Takashi Shimura stars as Dr. Sanada, the title character. Despite his problem with alcohol, Sanada is a consciencious physician who runs a clinic located near a large cesspool, which represents Japan in the early post-WWII years. But Mifune, as a gangster with TB, steals the movie. The scene in which, drunk and with pompadour flying, he jitterbugs like a madman, well, that alone is worth the price of admission.

Drunken Angel is a film of several other firsts besides being the first pairing of the director with Mifune. It was the first film that Kurosawa considered to be truly his own, having previously had to deal with Japanese wartime and then Allied Occupation censors. It was also the first time he worked with composer Fumio Hayasaka, who went on to score all but one of Kurosawa's films until he died in 1955. Finally, this was the first Kurosawa film to win the prestigious Kinema Jumpo Best Film award, which is roughly equivalent to the New York Film Critics' Award.

I first saw this film at Japan Society in 2003 and have hoped ever since that it would become available on DVD in the U.S. And now it soon will be joining the many other Kurosawa films from Criterion. (I believe that there are more Kurosawa films available from Criterion than from any other director, which is fine by me.) And coming from Criterion, you know it's going to be a magnificent transfer. Hopefully there'll also be enough DVD extras to make all of us thrilled.

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Also in the news from Criterion, is the announcement that January, 2008, will witness the release of Postwar Kurosawa. This will be Series 7 in Criterion's Eclipse line of lower cost box sets of lesser known films by great directors. The set will include:

No Regrets for Our Youth (Waga seishun ni kuinashi), 1947
One Wonderful Sunday (Subarashiki nichiyobi), 1947
Scandal (Shubun), 1950
The Idiot (Hakuchi), 1951
I Live in Fear (Ikimono no kiroku), 1955

I've only seen No Regrets, a solid film about a college professor's daughter who is caught up in the turmoil of the suppression of dissent in Japan during the 1930s and '40s. I Live in Fear is said to be most memorable for the then 35 year old Mifune's remarkable portrayal of a 70 year old who is terrified of the nuclear bomb and hatches a plan to move with his loved ones to Brazil, where he believes they will be safe.

The only real potential clunker is The Idiot. This movie was a box office disaster. It supposedly didn't work because Kurosawa made the mistake of too slavishly adhering to his source material. In his autobiography, Kurosawa said he was prepared to "eat cold rice" because the film bombed. He was spared, however, when Rashomon (1950) won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival. In any case, I can't imagine any Kurosawa fan passing up five films at a most reasonable price.

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Finally, and this is perhaps the only potentially bad news, VarietyAsiaOnline recently carried an article about Toho's plans to remake Kurosawa's classic Hidden Fortress (Kakushi-toride no san-akunin, 1958). This tale of a gruff general who, accompanied by two peasants, escorts a princess through enemy territory served, at a minimum, as inspiration for George Lucas's original Star Wars.

Shinji Higuchi, a director skilled in SFX, is to direct. Hiroshi Abe, said to be branching out from romantic comedy to action roles, will be taking over the Mifune role. Masami Nagasawa is set to portray the princess. In this remake, the two peasants will be combined into one character, a mountain dweller. This role will be filled by Jun Matsumoto, of the boy band Arashi.

Such ventures generally have disaster written all over them, but we'll just have to wait and see.

For the complete VarietyAsianOnline article on Toho's announced plans, click here.