Akira Kurosawa is renowned as one of the most exceptional artists in cinematic history. A powerful writer and director, he brought Japanese cinema to the attention of the rest of the world with the release of Rashomon in 1950, and subsequently gave us many of world cinema's best-loved films. This article focuses on Kurosawa's best-known films - many set in feudal Japan - as an introduction to the director's work - though it must be remembered that Kurosawa produced magnificent films in many other genres and settings.


Born in 1910 in the Omori district of Tokyo, Akira Kurosawa trained as a painter, and was introduced to the world of filmmaking when he applied for a position as an assistant director at P.C.L. (later to become Toho Studios). He was hired primarily because of his knowledge of Japanese and Western cinema and of traditional arts and literature, and began working under the tutelage of director Kajiro Yamamoto. He rose rapidly through the ranks and worked in many different capacities before directing his first film, Sanshiro Sugata (1943), a study of the life of a judo student. Later in life he was to acquire the nickname "The Emperor" for his autocratic nature on the set, though many of the actors and crew he worked with loved and respected him dearly.


Kurosawa's stature became apparent outside Japan with the release of Rashomon (1950), a film about the relative nature of truth based on a pair of short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. At the start of the film, a priest and a woodcutter wait in the rain underneath the ancient Rashomon Gate. Here they meet a peasant and tell him of a trial they've just witnessed, concerning the murder of a samurai and the rape of his wife for which a bandit, played with characteristic intensity by Toshiro Mifune, has been arrested. The story is shown in a series of flashbacks based on the conflicting stories of the characters: the bandit's testimony, then the wife's and then that of the dead samurai, speaking through a medium. A fourth version of the story is offered by the woodcutter, who was also a witness. Nothing like Rashomon had been seen anywhere else before, although nowadays we see echoes of its structure in films like Zhang Yimou's Hero and the German film Run Lola Run. Rashomon became the first Japanese film to compete at the Venice Film Festival, and won its Grand Prize, shocking the Japanese press and opening the door for Japanese cinema abroad.


1954 saw the release of The Seven Samurai, now widely regarded as one of the greatest works of cinema ever made. In this film, a group of poor farmers unable to protect themselves from bandits hire a band of samurai to help them. These samurai are led by Takashi Shimura, one of Japan's top actors at the time and a frequent cast member of Kurosawa's. Tagging along as a comically wild but brave aspiring warrior is Toshiro Mifune once again, also a Kurosawa regular. The story is simple, but the film is extraordinarily detailed and complex, with rich characterisation and some very fine acting, particularly from Mifune.


Kurosawa regularly took source material from Western literature as well as from Japanese sources, and in 1957, he loosely adapted Shakespeare's Macbeth as Throne of Blood. Mifune stars here as a warrior in feudal Japan, far removed from the down-to-earth world of the peasants presented in The Seven Samurai. On their way back from a battle, Mifune and another warrior, played by Minoru Chiaki, encounter a witch who predicts that Mifune will rule, but that Chiaki's son will rule after him. As in Shakespeare's play, Mifune is pushed by his wife (played by Isuzu Yamada) into killing his lord, and later assassinating the other warrior. Throne of Blood is a dreamlike, haunting film, shrouded in fog and shot on the black slopes of Mt. Fuji. The characters of the witch and the wife are strongly reminiscent of traditional Japanese Noh theatre, with makeup that suggests Noh masks and Yamada's slow, gliding walk lending her character an ethereal, menacing quality.


From the sombre gloom of Throne of Blood we turn to 1960's The Hidden Fortress, a light-hearted adventure movie. It follows the story of a princess and a general faithful to her clan, on the run from enemy forces and in possession of a fortune in gold. With the avarice-fueled help of two greedy peasants, the princess and the general pose as firewood merchants, hiding the gold in hollow pieces of wood in an attempt to reach freedom. The film has large, elaborate sets and some great acting, particularly as the fierce, determined general (played by Toshiro Mifune) coaxes and scares the two bumbling peasants (Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara) into helping them. George Lucas acknowledges the film as an inspiration for Star Wars, particularly the antics of the two peasants, who served as inspiration for the comic droids C3P0 and R2D2.


In 1961, Kurosawa made Yojimbo, another film starring Toshiro Mifune in one of his most famous roles, that of the samurai Sanjuro. At the beginning of the film, Sanjuro wanders into a small town and discovers from one of the locals that there is a struggle for control between two gangs, one run by the local sake merchant and one run by a silk merchant. As a much more skilled fighter than anyone else in the town, Sanjuro suddenly holds the balance of power in the village if he can be persuaded to join one side, and he spends the film playing each side against the other until both are destroyed. Many of the characters and situations in the film are different from the conventional ones we expect from the chambara genre, which Kurosawa subverts to such great effect. The gangs are cowardly and gullible, Mifune's ronin (masterless samurai) is dirty and disreputable, and even his motivations are unclear. Sanjuro doesn't seem to be cleaning up the town for altruistic reasons, or for money, or for honour; he seems to be involving himself primarily for amusement. Scratching himself and shrugging, Mifune laughs at the thugs squaring off against each other and plays the antihero brilliantly. Several years later, Sergio Leone remade Yojimbo as A Fistful of Dollars, which launched both the "spaghetti western" genre and the film career of actor Clint Eastwood.


Kurosawa's next film was a follow-up to Yojimbo called Sanjuro, which follows Mifune's character amongst samurai, far from the scuffling thugs of the first film. Sanjuro encounters nine rather inept samurai who have been set up and surrounded by a corrupt local superintendent. He hides the samurai and confronts the superintendent's men, killing many of them before being offered a job by way of a truce. Sanjuro plays along, but returns to the nine samurai later and agrees to join them and help their cause. The comedy in this film is more overt than in Yojimbo. Particular examples include Sanjuro's confusion when faced with an older, female samurai-class woman and his annoyance at the stupidity of the nine younger samurai. As in Yojimbo, the violence in the film is bloody and effective. One striking scene towards the end contains one of the more memorable duels in cinema history - Sanjuro and another samurai, Muroto, face off for about 30 seconds, completely motionless, before simultaneously drawing their swords. In a flash, blood fountains from Muroto's chest and he falls to the ground.


It was not until 1980 that Kurosawa returned to a feudal setting and made Kagemusha, the story of a condemned thief who doubles for a warlord for several years after the lord's death. The film was too expensive for Toho to make, and the extra money was provided by 20th Century Fox as a result of pressure from American director George Lucas. Lucas and fellow American filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola became international producers, and Kurosawa got the budget he needed to finish the film. Kagemusha (or "Shadow Warrior") tells the story of a powerful warlord, killed by a sniper's bullet, who decrees as he is dying that his death should be kept secret for three years. To achieve this, a condemned man with a startling resemblance to the dead lord assumes his identity - the shadow warrior of the title - to the knowledge of only the lord's generals and a few trusted servants. This trick fools everyone, even the lord's concubines and his grandson, the heir to the throne. Kagemusha stars Tatsuya Nakadai in the lead role, skillfully playing both the lord and the double. All of the films mentioned thus far were shot in black and white, but Kagemusha revels in its use of colour, with elaborate costuming and some wonderful battle scenes. The story is based on that of real-life lord Shingen Takeda, and Kurosawa strove to maintain as much historical accuracy as possible, even going to the effort of securing real 16th century armour and other clothes for some scenes. Kagemusha won many awards, including the Palme d'Or at Cannes (shared with the American film All That Jazz).


Kurosawa's last film in a feudal setting is Ran (1985), which casts Tatsuya Nakadai again in the role of a warlord. Inspired by Shakespeare's King Lear, the story revolves around Hidetora, a seventy-year-old warlord who abdicates, dividing his domain between his three sons. His youngest son protests and is banished for his troubles, while the two elder sons turn against their father and we witness Hidetora driven to madness as the brothers fight both him and each other. Ran is even more colourful and beautifully shot than Kagemusha, with sections filmed once again at Mt. Fuji. Particularly memorable are the battle scenes, with their seas of brightly-coloured flags, and the scene of Hidetora sitting alone in a castle as it burns around him, the result of his sons' treachery. Ran, like Kagemusha, was funded primarily by companies overseas and did well internationally, gaining three Oscar nominations and one Oscar (for best costume design), as well as a host of other awards. Many consider it Kurosawa's greatest masterpiece.





Published March 3, 2005