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“His ability to transform a vision into a powerful work of art is unparalleled.” —George Lucas DelUXe, linen-boUnD ColleCToR’S SeT inClUDeS 25 FilMS AnD An illustrateD book! 25 Films By AkirA kurosAwA the criterioN collectioN • JaNus Films AvAilAble 12/8/09 preorder NoW at aNy BarNes & NoBle store or oNliNe at WWW.BN.com The creator of such timeless masterpieces as Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and High and Low, Akira Kurosawa is one of the most influential and beloved filmmakers who has ever lived—and for many the greatest artist the medium has ever known. Now, on the centenary of his birth, the Criterion Collection and Janus Films are pleased to present this box set celebrating his astonishing career. Featuring twenty-five of the films Kurosawa made over the course of his fifty years in movies—from samurai epics to postwar noirs to Shakespeare adaptations—AK 100 is the most complete set of his works ever released in this country. 25-DiSC ColleCToR’S SeT FeATUReS The bAD Sleep Well (1960) ikiRU (1952) The Men Who TReAD on The RashoMon (1950) Scandal (1950) DoDeS’kA-Den (1970) i live in FeAR (1955) TigeR’S TAil (1945)* ReD beARD (1965) Seven SAMURAi (1954) DRUnken Angel (1948) kAgeMUShA (1980) The Most beautiFUl (1944)* SAnjURo (1962) STRAy Dog (1949) The hiDDen FortreSS (1958) The loWeR DepThS (1957) no RegReTS FoR oUR SAnShiRo SUgata (1943)* ThRone oF blooD (1957) high AnD loW (1963) Madadayo (1993) yoUTh (1946) SAnShiRo SUgata, yojiMbo (1961) The iDioT (1951) one WonDeRFUl SUnday (1947) Part TWo (1945)* *First time on DVD in the U.S. PLUS: A 96-page book featuring an essay and notes on each of the films by Stephen Prince (The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa), as well as a remembrance by Donald Richie (The Films of Akira Kurosawa) © 2009 The Criterion Collection. © 2009 Janus Films. All rights reserved. Cat. no. CC1858D. ISBN 978-1-60465-226-0. the criterioN collectioN • JaNus Films Printed in USA. www.criterion.com.

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East-West Film Journal, Volume 3, No. 2
EAST-WEST FILM JOURNAL VOLUME 3 . NUMBER 2 Kurosawa's Ran: Reception and Interpretation I ANN THOMPSON Kagemusha and the Chushingura Motif JOSEPH S. CHANG Inspiring Images: The Influence of the Japanese Cinema on the Writings of Kazuo Ishiguro 39 GREGORY MASON Video Mom: Reflections on a Cultural Obsession 53 MARGARET MORSE Questions of Female Subjectivity, Patriarchy, and Family: Perceptions of Three Indian Women Film Directors 74 WIMAL DISSANAYAKE One Single Blend: A Conversation with Satyajit Ray SURANJAN GANGULY Hollywood and the Rise of Suburbia WILLIAM ROTHMAN JUNE 1989 The East- West Center is a public, nonprofit educational institution with an international board of governors. Some 2,000 research fellows, grad uate students, and professionals in business and government each year work with the Center's international staff in cooperative study, training, and research. They examine major issues related to population, resources and development, the environment, culture, and communication in Asia, the Pacific, and the United States. The Center was established in 1960 by the United States Congress, which provides principal funding. Support also comes from more than twenty Asian and Pacific governments, as well as private agencies and corporations. Kurosawa's Ran: Reception and Interpretation ANN THOMPSON AKIRA KUROSAWA'S Ran (literally, war, riot, or chaos) was chosen as the first film to be shown at the First Tokyo International Film Festival in June 1985, and it opened commercially in Japan to record-breaking busi ness the next day. The director did not attend the festivities associated with the premiere, however, and the reception given to the film by Japa nese critics and reporters, though positive, was described by a French critic who had been deeply involved in the project as having "something of the air of an official embalming" (Raison 1985, 9).
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From 'Scottish' Play to Japanese Film: Kurosawa's Throne of Blood
arts Article From ‘Scottish’ Play to Japanese Film: Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood Dolores P. Martinez Emeritus Reader, SOAS, University of London, London WC1H 0XG, UK; [email protected] Received: 16 May 2018; Accepted: 6 September 2018; Published: 10 September 2018 Abstract: Shakespeare’s plays have become the subject of filmic remakes, as well as the source for others’ plot lines. This transfer of Shakespeare’s plays to film presents a challenge to filmmakers’ auterial ingenuity: Is a film director more challenged when producing a Shakespearean play than the stage director? Does having auterial ingenuity imply that the film-maker is somehow freer than the director of a play to change a Shakespearean text? Does this allow for the language of the plays to be changed—not just translated from English to Japanese, for example, but to be updated, edited, abridged, ignored for a large part? For some scholars, this last is more expropriation than pure Shakespeare on screen and under this category we might find Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (Kumonosu-jo¯ 1957), the subject of this essay. Here, I explore how this difficult tale was translated into a Japanese context, a society mistakenly assumed to be free of Christian notions of guilt, through the transcultural move of referring to Noh theatre, aligning the story with these Buddhist morality plays. In this manner Kurosawa found a point of commonality between Japan and the West when it came to stories of violence, guilt, and the problem of redemption. Keywords: Shakespeare; Kurosawa; Macbeth; films; translation; transcultural; Noh; tragedy; fate; guilt 1.
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The Hidden Fortress Delivers Kurosawa's Trademark Deft Blend of Wry Humor, Breathtaking Action, and Compassionate
The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa’s trademark deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action, and compassionate humanity. A grandscale adventure as only Akira Kurosawa could make one, The Hidden Fortress stars the inimitable Toshiro Mifune as a general charged with guarding his defeated clan’s princess (a fierce Misa Uehara) as the two smuggle royal treasure across hostile territory. Accompanying them are a pair of bumbling, conniving peasants who may or may not be their friends. This riproaring ride is among the director’s most beloved films and was a primary influence on George Lucas’s Star Wars. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Misa Uehara, Minoru Chiaki, Kamatari Fujiwara, Susumu Fujita In Japanese with English subtitles | Not Rated | 139 min | 1958 | Directed by Akira Kurosawa Registration is required. Presented with Japan Commerce Association of Washington, D.C., Inc. You are invited to J-Film: The Hidden Fortress Wednesday, March 14th, 2018 from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM (EDT) Japan Information & Culture Center, Embassy of Japan 1150 18th Street Northwest Suite 100 Washington DC 20036 US CLICK HERE TO REGISTER This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. In the event of a cancellation, please contact us at [email protected]. Program begins at 6:30 PM. Doors open 30 minutes before the program. No admittance after 7:00 PM. Registered guests will be seated on a ﬁrst come, ﬁrst served basis. Please note that seating is limited and registration does not guarantee a seat. The JICC reserves the right to use any photograph/video taken at any event sponsored by JICC without the expressed written permission of those included within the photograph/video..
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Akira Kurosawa: IKURU 1952 140 Minutes
October 9, 2007 (XV:7) Akira Kurosawa: IKURU 1952 140 minutes Directed by Akira Kurosawa Written by Shinobu Hashimoto, Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni Produced by Sojiro Motoki Original Music by Fumio Hayasaka Cinematography by Asakazu Nakai Takashi Shimura...Kanji Watanabe Shinichi Himori...Kimura Haruo Tanaka...Sakai Minoru Chiaki...Noguchi Miki Odagiri...Toyo Odagiri, employee Bokuzen Hidari...Ohara Minosuke Yamada...Subordinate Clerk Saito Seiji Miyaguchi...Yakuza Boss Kamatari Fujiwara...Sub-Section Chief Ono Daisuke Katô...Yakuza Makoto Kobori...Kiichi Watanabe, Kanji's Brother Miki Hayashi...Second Yakuza Nobuo Kaneko...Mitsuo Watanabe, Kanji's son Fuyuki Murakami...Newspaperman Nobuo Nakamura...Deputy Mayor Hirayoshi Aono...Newspaperman Atsushi Watanabe...Patient Junpei Natsuki...Hand-Washing Cancer Patient Isao Kimura...Intern Toranosuke Ogawa...Park Section Chief Masao Shimizu...Doctor Akira Sera...Worker in General Affairs Yûnosuke Itô...Novelist Ichirô Chiba...Policeman Kumeko Urabe...Tatsu Watanabe, Kiichi's Wife Akira Tani...Bar Owner Kin Sugai...Housewife Yoko Kajima...Worker in Sewage Section Eiko Miyoshi...Housewife Haruko Toyama Fumiko Honma...Housewife Mie...Woman in Dance Hall Yatsuko Tanami...Bar Hostess Sachio Sakai...Yakuza Yoshie Minami...The Maid Toshiyuki Ichimura...Pianist Kyôko Seki...Kazue Watanabe, Mitsuo's wife Harue Kuramoto...Dancer Kusuo Abe...City Assemblyman Lasa Saya...Stripper Tomoo Nagai...Newspaperman (as Tomo Nagai) AKIRA KUROSAWA (23 March 1910, Omori, Tokyo, Japan—6 September 1998, Setagaya, Tokyo,
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Masaki Kobayashi: HARAKIRI (1962, 133M) the Version of This Goldenrod Handout Sent out in Our Monday Mailing, and the One Online, Has Hot Links
October 8, 2019 (XXXIX: 7) Masaki Kobayashi: HARAKIRI (1962, 133m) The version of this Goldenrod Handout sent out in our Monday mailing, and the one online, has hot links. Spelling and Style—use of italics, quotation marks or nothing at all for titles, e.g.—follows the form of the sources. DIRECTOR Masaki Kobayashi WRITING Shinobu Hashimoto wrote the screenplay from a novel by Yasuhiko Takiguchi. PRODUCER Tatsuo Hosoya MUSIC Tôru Takemitsu CINEMATOGRAPHY Yoshio Miyajima EDITING Hisashi Sagara The film was the winter of the Jury Special Prize and nominated for the Palm d’Or at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. CAST Tatsuya Nakadai...Tsugumo Hanshirō (1979), Tokyo Trial* (Documentary) (1983), and Rentarō Mikuni...Saitō Kageyu Shokutaku no nai ie* (1985). He also wrote the screenplays Akira Ishihama...Chijiiwa Motome for A Broken Drum (1949) and The Yotsuda Phantom Shima Iwashita...Tsugumo Miho (1949). Tetsurō Tamba...Omodaka Hikokuro *Also wrote Ichiro Nakatani...Yazaki Hayato Masao Mishima...Inaba Tango SHINOBU HASHIMOTO (b. April 18, 1918 in Hyogo Kei Satō...Fukushima Masakatsu Prefecture, Japan—d. July 19, 2018 (age 100) in Tokyo, Yoshio Inaba...Chijiiwa Jinai Japan) was a Japanese screenwriter (71 credits). A frequent Yoshiro Aoki...Kawabe Umenosuke collaborator of Akira Kurosawa, he wrote the scripts for such internationally acclaimed films as Rashomon (1950) MASAKI KOBAYASHI (b. February 14, 1916 in and Seven Samurai (1954). These are some of the other Hokkaido, Japan—d. October 4, 1996 (age 80) in Tokyo, films he wrote for: Ikiru (1952),
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THE SUMMIT a Chronicle of Stones
THE SUMMIT A Chronicle of Stones (TSURUGIDAKE: TEN NO KI) A Toei/Fuji TV Production Director: Daisaku Kimura Cast: Tadanobu Asano (“Mongol” “Invisible Waves” “Kabei - Our Mother”) Teruyuki Kagawa (“Tokyo Sonata” “Tokyo!”) Toru Nakamura (“2009 Lost Memories” “Purple Butterfly”) Ryuhei Matsuda (“Gohatto -Taboo-“ “Nightmare Detective”) Aoi Miyazaki (“Atsuhime” (TV) “Nana” “Heavenly Forest”) Koji Yakusho (“Babel” “Silk” “Memoirs of a Geisha”) In 1907, a band of men challenged Japan’s last unconquered mountain, in order to complete a map of their nation. Mt. Tsurugidake - Located in Tateyama mountain range in the Northern Alps in Toyama Prefecture, Mt. Tsurugidake stands 2999m above sea level. Tsurugidake is renowned as a difficult mountain and since the beginning of historical records, it has been designated as the “god” for those engaged in mountain asceticism-shamanism and sometimes referred as “needle mountain” or “mountain of death” for its inaccessibility. Neither for fame, nor for profit, the men staked their lives on an impossible mission, for nothing more than a map. This true story gives us a frank view of the noble spirit of devotion and royal spirit, gradually becoming lost to the society of today. “This work is certainly not a film about the mountains: rather, it is a tale of human emotions and feelings and a film about life, set against the background of the mountains.” －Dir. Daisaku Kimura To realistically depict the noble existence of the climbers, Daisaku Kimura, a veteran cinematographer who filmed “Mount Hakkoda” (1977) “Virus: Day of Resurrection (Fukkatsu no Hi)” (1980) and “Poppoya-Railroad Man” (1999) challenged the shooting together with the hand-picked staff and cast set off like a group of mountaineers to challenge the beautiful yet cruel Mt.
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The Jedi of Japan
Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Trinity Publications (Newspapers, Yearbooks, The Trinity Papers (2011 - present) Catalogs, etc.) 2016 The Jedi of Japan David Linden Trinity College, Hartford Connecticut Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/trinitypapers Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Linden, David, "The Jedi of Japan". The Trinity Papers (2011 - present) (2016). Trinity College Digital Repository, Hartford, CT. https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/trinitypapers/45 The Jedi of Japan David Linden The West’s image today of the Japanese samurai derives in large part from the works of Japanese film directors whose careers flourished in the period after the Second World War. Foremost amongst these directors was Akira Kurosawa and it is from his films that Western audiences grew to appreciate Japanese warriors and the main heroes and villains in the Star Wars franchise were eventually born. George Lucas and the first six films of the Star Wars franchise draw heavily from Kurosawa’s films, the role of the samurai in Japanese culture, and Bushido—their code. In his book, The Samurai Films of Akira Kurosawa, David Desser explains how Kurosawa himself was heavily influenced by Western culture and motifs and this is reflected in his own samurai films which “embod[y] the tensions between Japanese culture and the new American ways of the occupation” (Desser. 4). As his directorial style matured during the late forties, Kurosawa closely examined Western films and themes such as those of John Ford, and sought to apply the same themes, techniques and character development to Japanese films and traditions.
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1 Akira Kurosawa: Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985)
1 Akira Kurosawa: Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985) In these two massive films, we watch Kurosawa either “losing his touch,” or “developing a more Olympian style,” depending on your viewpoint. By accident, Kagemusha is the most self- referential of works. Having as subject an “actor” who takes over a real-life “part” (the double, or kagemusha, for a warlord) from a previous actor (that is, from the previous double), it stars Tatsuya Nakadai, who took over from Toshiro Mifune when Mifune walked out on Kurosawa after the director had made his career impossible. Kurosawa had insisted on Mifune’s having his beard dyed red for the black-and-white movie Red Beard (you can sort of see the difference it makes), and Red Beard had been in shooting for two years, so Mifune had for that time been unable to accept any other roles which didn’t call for a red beard. He was a perfectionist, but he was also a professional, so he refused to work for Kurosawa again (his career went downhill all the way from then). Nakadai was already an established actor, and had worked with Kurosawa before (he’s the gun-toting bandit in Yojimbo, and the guy whose heart explodes at the end of Sanjuro ). But what’s clear in Kagemusha is the terrifying job he has, which is to give the performance Mifune would have given if only he’d been there. The only parallel I can think of is Alec Guinness giving an Alastair Sim performance in The Ladykillers – but he does that for a joke.
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KUROSAWA Player.Bfi.Org.Uk
OVER 100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA Watch now on PART 1: KUROSAWA player.bfi.org.uk Watch now on 1 @BFI #BFIJapan OVER 100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA We have long carried a torch for Japanese film here at the BFI. IN PARTNERSHIP WITH Since the first BFI London Film Festival opened with Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood in 1957, we’ve played a vital role in bringing the cinema of this culturally rich nation to UK audiences through our festivals, seasons, theatrical distribution, books and video publishing. In this major season we spotlight filmmakers who have inspired admiration and With special thanks to: fascination around the world. We begin our story with Akira Kurosawa, and over the coming months we’ll present films from the Golden Age, a focus on Yasujiro Ozu, new wave rebels, the visionary creations of anime, the netherworlds of J-horror, and so much more from archive rarities to contemporary works and cult classics. This landmark season will take place on BFI Player from 11 May onwards, With the kind support of: with new online collections released each month, and we expect to present it Janus Films/The Criterion Collection, Kadokawa Corporation, at BFI Southbank and cinemas nationwide later this year. Kawakita Memorial Film Institute, Kokusai Hoei Co., Ltd, The Japanese Cinema Book, published by BFI & Bloomsbury to coincide Nikkatsu Corporation, Toei Co., Ltd with the season, is out now. Cover artwork: TOKYO STORY ©1953/2011 Shochiku Co., Ltd., OUTRAGE 2010 Courtesy of STUDIOCANAL, AUDITION 1999 © Arrow Films, HARAKIRI ©1962 Shochiku Co., Ltd. Watch now on 2 @BFI #BFIJapan PART 1: KUROSAWA WATCH ON NOW This retrospective collection on BFI Player helps to confirm Kurosawa’s status as one of the small handful of Japanese directors who truly belong to world cinema, writes Alexander Jacoby If Yasujiro Ozu is often called ‘the most Japanese of Japanese directors’, then one could almost identify Akira Kurosawa as the least Japanese of Japanese directors.
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The Super-Samurai and the Anti-Hero
1 The Super-Samurai and the Anti-Hero “In my childhood, America was like a religion. Then, real-life Americans abruptly entered my life – in jeeps – and upset all my dreams. I found them very energetic, but also very deceptive. They were no longer the Americans of the West. They were soldiers like any others: materialists, possessive, keen on pleasures and earthly goods.”— Sergio Leone, Interview “I was fed up with the world of the Yakuza [Japanese gangsters]. So in order to attack their evil and irrationality, and thoroughly mess them up, I brought in the super-samurai played by Mifune. He was himself an outsider, a kind of outlaw, which enabled him to act flexibly, if sometimes recklessly. Only such a samurai of the imagination much more powerful than a real samurai, could mess up these gangsters.”—Kurosawa, Interview with Joan Mellen, 1975 Global Questions Are Yojimbo and Fistful of Dollars simply glorifying violence? Should violence be funny? If so, under what conditions? Should either or both films be read as an indictment of modern society? Why or why not? Furthermore, can either film be said to have a moral message? What are the consolations, seductions, and poetic justice of the final showdown in films? Can Sanjuro or “Joe” be said to be a hero in any classic sense of the word? Mise-en-scéne Mise-en-scéne, which literally means, “placement upon the stage,” is a term in film studies for the comprehensive directorial vision of a scene’s (or a whole film’s) time and place, as well as often its overall ambiance.
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Seven Samurai Rip Offs
Seven Samurai rip offs- 13th Warrior The Magnificent Seven Ronin Dirty Dozen Saving Private Ryan The Wild Bunch Conan the Barbarian (1982) Battle Beyond the Stars Last Man Standing /Yojimbo The Bodyguard, Kevin Costner watches a screening of Kurosawa's film and later does some samurai-ish turns with a sword (Yojimbo, loosely translated, is Japanese for "bodyguard"). THE FILMS of Akira Kurosawa have always been a point at which Eastern and Western currents crossed. His Throne of Blood (1957) retold Macbeth, and Ran (1985) resembled King Lear. And Kurosawa hasn't borrowed only from high art. His thriller High and Low (1963) was an adaptation of 87th-precinct creator Ed McBain's novel King's Ransom. Western filmmakers have returned the compliment, if it can be considered such. Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (1954) was turned into the 1960 Western hit The Magnificent Seven, and Rashomon (1950) was clumsily translated into Martin Ritt's The Outrage (1964). Although Kurosawa's borrowings from Shakespeare and McBain were acknowledged, The Magnificent Seven and The Outrage were made without the master's approval or even his knowledge. Kurosawa apparently reached his limit with A Fistful of Dollars and sued in an Italian court. Leone, incredibly, denied the connection between his film and Yojimbo, even though numerous critics have pointed out the similarities not only in plot but in shot selection and camera angles. After the suit dragged on for years, Kurosawa finally received a portion of the profits from A Fistful of Dollars and the copyrights to Yojimbo, while United Artists, Leone's distributor, retained copyrights to A Fistful of Dollars.
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Eric Lachs Yojimbo: Ideology and Interpretation JPN3391, Section 7538
Eric Lachs Yojimbo: Ideology and Interpretation JPN3391, Section 7538 Yojimbo was directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1961. It is the story of a nineteenth century Japanese village that is controlled by two opposing merchants and their clans. The visit of a wandering samurai, who seeks work as a hired killer, interrupts their arguing over a gambling concession. The samurai, Sanjuro, is able to exploit both gangs using his skill with a sword. The story is an Eastern take on the Hollywood western with a dash of satire, with “The bodyguard who kills the bodies he is hired to guard.”1 The film incorporates a humanist take on capitalism and its adverse outcome on society. The main message of the film is the destructive nature of capitalism on society. This message is reasonably obvious given the nature of the story and its outcome. The opposing gangs are in markets for sake and silk, and their desire to dominate the market economically is what motivates them to kill. In Yojimbo, it is money that creates greed, and greed that necessitates murder. The film brings attention to the intentions of Western economy and attempts to prove the negativity and insatiability of these objectives. The earliest example of this in the film is when the bodyguard witnesses a son running away from his family to pursue a life of gambling. The fact that the son prefers a short, exciting life to a long, productive existence serves as a stepping-stone for the overall apathy of many of the story’s main characters. The choice of self- indulgence over self-fulfillment is an illustration of the moral emptiness of capitalistic values.
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