RASHOMON at Japan Society NY this Wednesday, February 1st, 2023

Japan Society
Presents

Toshiro Mifune and, behind his shoulder, Machiko Kyo

Rashomon

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

With Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori

Japan, 1950, 88 minutes
35mm, b&w, in Japanese with English subtitles
 

When: Wednesday, February 1st 2023 at 7:00 pm

Where: Japan Society NY
333 East 47th Street
New York, NY 10017
Map

Tickets

 
A riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice, Rashomon is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. Based on a story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, father of the modern Japanese short novel, Rashomon follows four people who give different accounts of a samurai's murder—brilliantly presented by director Akira Kurosawa with striking imagery and an ingenious use of flashbacks.

 

Rashomon is generally recognized that as the film that brought Japanese filmmaking into the ranks of World Cinema when it won the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival. (In Something Like An Autobiography, Kurosawa wrote that his next film, 1951s The Idiot, did so poorly that Daiei "rescinded its offer for me to do another film with them." Rashomon's success at Venice -- where he didn't even know it had been submitted --  spared him "from having to eat cold rice" and allowed him to continue on the incredible filmmaking bath that followed.)

 

Rashomon also  received an Honorary Award from the Board of Governors at the 1952 Academy Awards as the most outstanding foreign language film released in the United States during 1951. (It was not until 1956, at the 29th Academy Awards, that a competitive Academy Award of Merit, known as the Best Foreign Language Film Award, was created for non-English speaking films.)

 

This screening of Rashomon is part of Japan Society's MONTHLY CLASSICS film series. It is also part of a series of programs celebrating the life and work of the prolific Japanese author Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Upcoming: AKUTAGAWA—an amalgam of his best-known stories told through traditional Japanese puppetry (Feb. 23–25).

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KAGEMUSHA screening at Japan Society tomorrow evening

Japan Society NY
Presents 

Kagemusha
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Japan, 1980) on 35mm

When: Friday, June 10th at 7:00 pm
Where: Japan Society NY
333 East 47th Street
Buy Tickets

When a petty thief is given another chance at life to serve as a double for an aging warlord, Akira Kurosawa’s late-period masterpiece erupts into a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions set against a backdrop of feudal Japan. In Japanese with English subtitles.

Watch the trailer here.

This screening of Kagemusha is part of Japan Society's Monthly Classics Series.

Japan Society's Visitor Policies and Safety Protocols.

Kurosawa's YOJIMBO at Japan Society NY this Friday, March 2nd

Japan Society NY

presents

© 1961 Toho Co., Ltd.

Yojimbo

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

With Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa, Isuzu Yamada.

Japan, 1961, 110 minutes

B&W, in Japanese with English subtitles

When: Friday, March 2, 2018 at 7:00 PM

Where: Japan Society NY

333 East 47th Street, NYC

Map

Tickets: $13/$10 seniors & students / $5 Japan Society members

In writing about Akira Kurosawa's scruffy samurai classic starring the iconic Toshiro Mifune, preeminent Japanese film historian Donald Richie matter-of-factly states, "Yojimbo is the best-filmed of any of Kurosawa's pictures." A masterclass in widescreen framing and composition, the black-and-white cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa (and second unit cameraman Takao Saito) maximizes the film's minimal set, mostly consisting of a small town's dusty main road, with ingenious use of deep focus and wide angle lenses. Hugely influential in style and subject, Yojimbo went on to inspire a number of reworkings, including Sergio Leone's career-catapulting western A Fistful of Dollars.

Related Film Series: Kazuo Miyagawa: Japan's Greatest Cinematographer, April 13–28

MIFUNE: THE LAST SAMURAI opens in theaters starting November 25th

Strand Releasing

Presents

Mifune: The Last Samurai

Directed by Steven Okazaki

Narrated by: Keanu Reeves

USA/Japan, 2015, 80 minutes

In English and Japanese (With Subtitles)

Opening Theatrically on Friday, November 25, 2016 in New York at the IFC Center

with additional cities including Los Angeles (December 2),

San Francisco (December 9) and a wider national release to follow

Nearly 20 years after his death, Toshiro Mifune remains a true giant of world cinema. He made 16 remarkable films with director Akira Kurosawa, including Rashomon, Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, and together they shook the film world, inspiring not only The Magnificent Seven and Clint Eastwood’s breakthrough movie, A Fistful of Dollars, but also George Lucas’ Star Wars.

Mifune: The Last Samurai, the new feature-length documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki, explores the evolution of the samurai film; Mifune's childhood and World War II experience; his accidental entry into the movies; and dynamic but sometimes turbulent collaboration with Kurosawa.

Mifune – wry, charismatic and deadly -- was the first non-white action star. “A lot of people try to imitate Mifune, especially when they’re playing strong and silent,” says Steven Spielberg, “ but nobody can. He was unique in all the world.”

Kurosawa's STRAY DOG to screen at Japan Society today, Friday, April 1st

Stray Dog © 1949 Toho Co., Ltd.

Just a quick reminder that Akira Kuroswa's Stray Dog (1949) will be screened tonight at Japan Society NY at 7:00 pm. The police prodcedural stars Toshiro Mifune as a rookie detective desperately trying to recover his stolen service revolver and Takashi Shimura as his seasoned section chief. Tonight's screening is a fantastic opportunity to see this great film in glorious 35mm black and white.

Complete info here.

Kurosawa's STRAY DOG to screen at Japan Society this Friday, April 1st

Japan Society Film Program's

Monthly Classics Series

Presents

Stray Dog / Nora Inu

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

With Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Isao Kimura,

Keiko Awaji, and Reisaburo Yamamoto.

When: Friday, April 1st at 7 pm

Japan, 1949, 122 minutes, 35mm, b&w

In Japanese with English subtitles. 

Map

Tickets 

Akira Kurosawa’s classic police procedural starring a luminous Toshiro Mifune screens in honor of what would have been the superstar actor’s 96th birthday. On a sweltering summer day, a rookie detective named Murakami (Mifune) has his pistol stolen on a crowded city bus. Panicked, he scours the bustling streets of downtown Tokyo for clues, aided by a seasoned section chief (Takashi Shimura). As Murakami gets closer to recovering the pistol, however, the distinction between himself and the criminal who stole it starts to become less and less clear. Stray Dog plunges deep into the anxiety and moral ambiguity of immediate postwar Japan with Kurosawa’s masterful visual flair.

Commemorating Akira Kurosawa's 105th birthday

 Akira Kurosawa
March 23, 1910 - September 6, 1998

Akira Kurasawa was born 105 years ago in Tokyo. Unquestionably the most famous Japanese film director in the West, he is revered not only for so many fine films, an incredible number of which are masterpieces or near-masterpieces, but also for putting Japanese cinema on the world stage. This occurred when Rashomon, which had been released in 1950, won the Golden Lion Award at the 1951 Venice Film Festival. Kurosawa himself was also awarded the Italian Film Critics Award at that same festival.

Still, I believe that the single film with which his name is most closely associated is Seven Samurai (1954). For me it is a work of cinematic perfection: there's not the single, slightest thing about it that could be improved upon.

Kurosawa (front center) with the cast and crew of The Lower Depths (1957)

During his lifetime Kurosawa directed some 31 films. For me his towering presence in world cinema is most succinctly embodied in the fact that, as far as I can tell, he has more films in the Criterion Collection than any other director. The Criterion offerings include the massive box set AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa. If you don't already own many of his films on DVD, this might be a perfect purchase, though it requires the outlay of a considerable amount of money at one time. It includes four of his earliest films: Sanshiro Sugata (1943), The Most Beautiful (1944), Sanshiro Sugata Part Two (1945), and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail ((1945). These four films also became available in a box set from Criterion entitled Eclipse Series 23: The First Films of Akira Kurosawa. Another box set that was released earlier is Eclipse Series 7: Postwar Kurosawa, a collection of five "lesser" films spanning 1946 - 1955.

Though he never received an Oscar as a director, in 1990 he received an honorary Oscar for his achievements in film, both in terms of the audiences he reached and the filmmakers he influenced. Two of his films Dersu Uzala (1975) and Ran (1985) were awarded Oscars as best foreign films. All told he won 61 award and was nominated for another 17.

All praise and thanks to one of the world's greatest movie directors. His contributions will last in the memories of film lovers forever.

SEVEN WARRIORS reviewed

Well Go USA

presents

Seven Warriors / Zhong yi qun ying

Directed by Sammo Hung and Terry Tong

Hong Kong, 1989, 94 minutes

Akira Kurosawa's jidaigeki (period, as opposed to contemporary) films have certainly proved to be remake fodder for other filmmakers. Rashomon (1950), the film that brought both Kurosawa and Japanese film to the attention of world cinema, was remade by Martin Ritt as The Outrage (1964). Yojimbo (1961) was refashioned into Sergio Leone's spaghetti western Fistful of Dollars (1964), and years later Walter Hill set it in a Prohibition ghost town in Last Man Standing (1996). Seven Samurai was done as The Magnificent Seven (1960) by John Sturges.

And now, with Well Go USA's recent release of Seven Warriors on Blu-ray and DVD, North American fans have a Hong Kong version of Seven Samurai to add to their collections.

This time the tale is set in China during the turbulent 1920s when some former government soldiers have become thieves and bandits. Guangzi, one of the villages threatened by a marauding band, sends a group to search for protectors. Seven warriors are recruited to assist the villagers in defending their land and lives.

Adam Cheng as Commanger Chi

The group is led by Commander Chi (inconsistently spelled ""Qi" in some of the subtitles), a former military leader. He is played by Adam Cheng (Saving General Yang). Tony Leung Chiu Wai (The Grandmaster, Infernal Affairs, etc.) is Wong Way-Wu, whose enthusiasm for the role of defender is far greater than his actual abilities to fight. Ching (Jacky Cheung, Bodyguards and Assassins) is a former army training officer who sports a scar on his right cheek. Actors Mak Mok, Lam Kwok-Bun, Shing Fui-On and Wu Ma portray the other four warriors. The gang is led by Piu (Lieh Lo, Five Fingers of Death, Supercop).

Aside from an opening scene that features co-director Sammo Hung as Hung, who taught villagers that "unity is strength," there is really no kung fu in evidence. (This scene, by the way, is Sammo's only onscreen appearance in the film.) The fighting is almost completely restricted to pistols and rifles, with a machine gun, some knives, and a few grenades thrown in.

This brings up what I think is the main problem with the movie, the same problem that I found with The Magnificent Seven. Namely, the tale isn't nearly as interesting with these weapons as it was in Kurosawa's original, which overwhelmingly relied on swordplay or other direct contact combat. Furthermore, both Seven Warriors and The Magnificent Seven have the climactic battle taking place in fine weather, unlike Seven Samurai's torrential downpour.

Left to right: Tony Leung, Jacky Cheung, and Wu Ma

I also found Seven Warriors weakened by two things things that I consider silly or stupid. One was a row of sandbags that conveniently gives the attacking bandits a barrier to hide behind, while the defenders get behind another row of sandbags closer to the village. The outer row might have made sense if the villagers initially used it, but were driven back to the second row, but nothing of the kind happens. It's like that row was there just to give the bad guys something to hide behind.

Another silly thing -- at least to me -- was one warrior just standing upright out in the open as a bandit on horseback comes charging at him with sword in hand. It's like the defender is just standing there asking to be hacked at, which is just what happens. 

Seven Warriors looks very, very good on Blu-ray, far better than I'd expected for such an old Hong Kong film. There are no bonuses on disc.

AsianCineFest Rating: 2.5 out of 4 stars; a better than fair but not quite a really good film. For me personally, one of the nice things about it was seeing Tony Leung and Jacky Cheung in a film released one year before they appeard in John Woo's Bullet in the Head. Such young boo-boos.

SEVEN WARRIORS coming on Blu-ray and DVD April 22nd

Well Go USA

presents

In the Chaotic Era, They Stand and Fight

The Modern Retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai

Debuts on Blu-ray™ & DVD April 22nd

Legendary actor, stuntman, fight choreographer and pioneer of Hong Kong’s New Wave Movement, Sammo Hung (Ip Man 2: Legend of the Grandmaster) co-directs (with Terry Tong) and stars in the action-packed martial arts drama SEVEN WARRIORS, debuting on Blu-ray™ and DVD April 22nd from Well Go USA Entertainment.

A rousing modern retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, the film depicts the story of terrified Chinese villagers who recruit brave mercenary warriors to defend against marauding Japanese invaders. Adam Cheng (The Legend, Saving General Yang), Max Mok (Once Upon a Time in China series), Jacky Cheung (Bodyguards and Assassins), Lam Kwok-Bun, Wu Ma (White Vengeance), Shing Fui-On (A Better Tomorrow) and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Hero, Infernal Affairs) are the warriors, with Lo Lieh (Five Fingers of Death, Supercop) as their sworn enemy…who was once their comrade-in-arms.

Synopsis: The film is set in China's Warlord Era, where desperate soldiers have become thieves and bandits, leaving towns – and lives – in ruins. The villagers of Guangxi rise up, hiring seven warriors to take up arms against the marauders and save their home.

SEVEN WARRIORS has a runtime of approximately 94 minutes and is not rated.

ACF 2077: Kurosawa's HIGH AND LOW opens Donald Richie Tribute at Japan Society this Friday evening

High and Low © 1963 Toho Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

High and Low / Tengoku to Jigoku

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

With Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa, Tatsuya Nakadai,

Isao Kimura, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Tatsuya Mihashi

Japan, 1963, 143 minutes, B&W (and a tiny dollop of color!)

When: Friday, October 18, 7 PM

Where: Japan Society

333 East 47th Street, NYC

(Between 1st and 2nd avenues)

In Japanese with English subtitles

Donald Richie on High and Low: "A morality play in the form of an exciting thriller. A self-made man (Mifune) is ruined by a jealous nobody (Yamazaki in his first important screen role) but goes on to do the right thing and in the end the camera observes more similarities than differences between the two. With a memorable mid-film climax on a high-speed bullet-train."

Akira Kurosawa's dynamic yet humanist films became immortal thanks to Richie's definitive book The Films of Akira Kurosawa (University of California Press, 1965; revised in 1984), in which Richie discusses Kurosawa's powerful cinematic styles and his ethical concerns. In High and Low, Kurosawa highlights the desperate efforts of a shoe magnate and the police who are trying to retrieve a kidnapped child. At the same time, he contemplates the class differences between the wealthy executive's lifestyle "high" on a hill and the slums located "below," where the kidnapper rages with anger. The film is based (somewhat loosely) on Ed McBain's novel King's Ransom.

Friday night's screening will be introduced by Kyoko Hirano, curator of the series and former Director of Japan Society's Film Program, and will be followed by a reception.

This screening of High and Low opens the film series: Richie's Fantastic Five: A Tribute to Donald Richie (1924-2013), Part 1.

TICKETS $12/$9 Japan Society members, seniors and students

Buy tickets online or call the Japan Society Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon. - Fri. 11 am - 6 pm, Weekends 11 am - 5 pm.

If interested in purchasing group tickets for the event (10 or more), email f2@japansociety.org for information on their discount rate for groups.

ACF 2056: New series at Japan Society NY to focus on five directors championed by Donald Richie

Richie's Fantastic Five:
Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Koreeda

When: October 18, 2013 - February 19, 2014
Where: Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, NYC
(between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

Part One of  a new Monthly Film Series Highlights

Five Seminal Directors Introduced and Championed

by Legendary Japanese Cinema Critic Donald Richie

Before his passing in February, Donald Richie (1924-2013) educated and inspired generations to become interested in Japan through the Japanese art and culture he introduced – especially through film. Noted film scholar Kyoko Hirano calls him one of the single most important film and cultural critics. "Many people in the world beyond North America and Western Europe, beyond the film world, first became acquainted with Japanese culture through Richie's wide range of writings," she says.

In Richie's Fantastic Five: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Kore-eda, Japan Society's Film Program honors Richie's legacy, presenting five timeless classics and hard-to-see gems over five months in glorious 35mm presentations. Curated by Hirano, a former Japan Society Film Program Director, the series highlights five seminal Japanese directors, who first became known throughout the world through Richie's work. Co-presented with The Japan Foundation, the series launches with Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (October 18); continuing with Kenji Mizoguchi's The Life of Oharu (November 16); Yasujiro Ozu's Equinox Flower (December 12), screening on Ozu's birthday and the 50^th anniversary of his death; Mitsuo Yanagimachi's Himatsuri (January 24), unavailable on DVD; and Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life (February 19), marking the one-year anniversary of Richie's death.

Hirano notes, "Richie tirelessly promoted the cinematic beauty of such giants as Kurosawa, Ozu, Mizoguchi and Mikio Naruse; championed the iconoclastic energy of Japanese New Wave directors Nagisa Oshima, Masahiro Shinoda, Susumu Hani and Shohei Imamura; and celebrated the vibrant styles of new and upcoming directors such as Yoshimitsu Morita, Kazuo Hara, Yanagimachi and Kore-eda. Thanks to Richie, the world knows the greatness of Japanese cinema."

Further information about Richie's Fantastic Five film series and descriptions of each film can be found here.

Tickets to each screening are $12/$9 Japan Society members, seniors and students. Tickets may be purchased in person at Japan Society, by calling the box office at 212-715-1258, or at www.japansociety.org.

The second part of the series, also curated by Hirano, will focus on films that portray various aspects of Japanese society as observed through Richie's eyes, and begins March 2014 as part of the annual spring Globus Film Series.

ACF 1850: Remembering Toshiro Mifune on the anniversary of his birth

Mifune as Kikuchiyo in Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954)

Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune was born on April 1, 1920 in Tsingtao (a.k.a. Qingdao), Shandong, China, where his father was a commercial photographer. He died at the age of 77 on December 24, 1997 in Tokyo. He is listed as an actor in 182 titles on his IMDb page. He also served as a producer on fifteen titles and actually directed one film in 1963.

He is, of course, most strongly associated with Akira Kurosawa; most of the films for which both are best known are ones directed by Kurosawa in which Mifune starred. Mifune also starred in the title role of Hiroshi Inagaki's trilogy about the famed swordsman Mushashi Miyamoto. Mifune became widely known to many Westerners who had never even seen a Japanese movie when he played Lord Yoshi Toranaga in the TV mini-series Shogun (1980).

Here are images from four other 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 1407: Toshiro Mifune

Today marks the 92nd 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 182 films and television roles, 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 Kurosawa films:

As Matsunaga in Drunken Angel / Yoidore tenshi (1948)

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

As Tajomaru in Rashomon (1950), with Machiko Kyo

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

Mifune also starred in Hiroshi Inagaki's trilogy about Musashi Miyamoto (1954-56).

He probably became most widely known in the U.S. for his role as Lord Yoshi Toranaga in the Shogun TV mini-series (1980).

So, here's a huge ACF "Thank you" to Toshiro Mifune on the anniversary of his birth, for both his astounding number of incredible performances and his overall contributions not just to Japanese but to world cinema.

ACF 1393: Akira Kurosawa

 Akira Kurosawa
March 23, 1910 - September 6, 1998

Akira Kurasawa was born 102 years ago in Tokyo. Unquestionably the most famous Japanese film director in the West, he is revered not only for so many fine films, an incredible number of which are masterpieces or near-masterpieces, but also for putting Japanese cinema on the world stage. This occurred when Rashomon, which had been released in 1950, won the Golden Lion Award at the 1951 Venice Film Festival. Kurosawa himself was also awarded the Italian Film Critics Award at that same festival.

Still, I believe that the single film with which his name is most closely associated is Seven Samurai (1954). For me it is a work of cinematic perfection: there's not the single, slightest thing about it that could be improved upon.

Kurosawa (front center) with the cast and crew of The Lower Depths (1957)

During his lifetime Kurosawa directed some 31 films. For me his towering presence in world cinema is most succinctly embodied in the fact that, as far as I can tell, he has more films in the Criterion Collection than any other director. The Criterion offerings include the massive box set AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa. If you don't already own many of his films on DVD, this might be a perfect purchase, though it requires the outlay of a considerable amount of money at one time. It includes four of his earliest films: Sanshiro Sugata (1943), The Most Beautiful (1944), Sanshiro Sugata Part Two (1945), and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail ((1945). These four films also became available in a box set from Criterion entitled Eclipse Series 23: The First Films of Akira Kurosawa. Another box set that was released earlier is Eclipse Series 7: Postwar Kurosawa, a collection of five "lesser" films spanning 1946 - 1955.

Though he never received an Oscar as a director, in 1990 he received an honorary Oscar for his achievements in film, both in terms of the audiences he reached and the filmmakers he influenced. Two of his films Dersu Uzala (1975) and Ran (1985) were awarded Oscars as best foreign films. All told he won 61 award and was nominated for another 17.

All praise and thanks to one of the world's greatest movie directors. His contributions will last in the memories of film lovers forever.

ACF 948: Commemorating Akira Kurosawa's 101st birthday

Akira Kurosawa

March 23, 1910 - September 6, 1998

Akira Kurasawa was born 101 years ago in Tokyo. Unquestionably the most famous Japanese film director in the West, he is revered not only for so many fine films, an incredible number of which are masterpieces or near-masterpieces, but also for putting Japanese cinema on the world stage. This occurred when Rashomon, which had been released in 1950, won the Golden Lion Award at the 1951 Venice Film Festival. Kurosawa himself was also awarded the Italian Film Critics Award at that same festival.

Still, I believe that the single film with which his name is most closely associated is Seven Samurai (1954). For me it is a work of cinematic perfection: there's not the single, slightest thing about it that could be improved upon.

During his lifetime Kurosawa directed some 31 films, all of which are now available on DVD. For me his towering presence in world cinema is most succinctly embodied in the fact that he has more films in the Criterion Collection than any other director. The Criterion offerings include the massive AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa. If you don't already own many of his films on DVD, this might be a perfect purchase. It includes four of his earliest films: Sanshiro Sugata (1943), The Most Beautiful (1944), Sanshiro Sugata Part Two (1945), and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail ((1945). These four films also became available in a box set from Criterion entitled Eclipse Series 23: The First Films of Akira Kurosawa. Another box set that was released earlier is Eclipse Series 7: Postwar Kurosawa, a collection of five "lesser" films spanning 1946 - 1955.

Though he never received an Oscar as a director, in 1990 he received an honorary Oscar for his achievements in film, both in terms of the audiences he reached and the filmmakers he influenced. Two of his films Dersu Uzala (1975) and Ran (1985) were awarded Oscars as best foreign films. All told he won 61 award and was nominated for another 17.

All praise and thanks to one of the world's greatest movie directors. His contributions will last in the memories of film lovers forever.

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 509: Akira Kurosawa Centennial

Akira Kurosawa

March 23, 1910 - September 6, 1998

Today marks the centenary of Akira Kurasawa's birth in Tokyo. Unquestionably the most famous Japanese film director in the West, he is revered not only for so many fine films, an incredible number of which are masterpieces or near-masterpieces, but also for putting Japanese cinema on the world stage. This occurred when Rashomon, which had been released in 1950, won the Golden Lion Award at the 1951 Venice Film Festival. Kurosawa himself was also awarded the Italian Film Critics Award at that same festival.

Still, I believe that the single film with which his name is most closely associated is Seven Samurai (1954). For me it is a work of cinematic perfection: there's not the single, slightest thing about it that could be improved upon.

During his lifetime Kurosawa directed some 31 films, all of which are now available on DVD. For me his towering presence in world cinema is most succinctly embodied in the fact that he has more films in the Criterion Collection than any other director. The Criterion offerings include the recent, massive release AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa. If you don't already own many of his films on DVD, this might be a perfect purchase. It includes four of his earliest films: Sanshiro Sugata (1943), The Most Beautiful (1944), Sanshiro Sugata Part Two (1945), and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail ((1945). Right now the deluxe box set is the only way to obtain Region 1 copies of these four films. Hopefully Criterion will soon release them in an Eclipse Series box set, as it did with Eclipse Series 7: Postwar Kurosawa, a collection of five "lesser" films spanning 1946 - 1955.

Though he never received an Oscar as a director, in 1990 he received an honorary Oscar for his achievements in film, both in terms of the audiences he reached and the filmmakers he influenced. Two of his films Dersu Uzala (1975) and Ran (1985) were awarded Oscars as best foreign films. All told he won 61 award and was nominated for another 17.

All praise and thanks to one of the world's greatest movie directors. His contributions will last in the memories of filmlovers forever.