griggs's - Akira Kurosawa Ranked List
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Seven Samurai (1954)Shichinin no Samurai
In 16th century Japan a poor village is raided every year by a group of bandits until, driven to the brink of starvation, the villagers decide to hire professional warriors to protect them. With only three meager meals a day to offer as payment, their request seems an impossible one. A simple plot, flawlessly executed - 'Seven Samurai' combines comedy, pathos, memorable characters, gripping tension and some of the finest action scenes ever filmed. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima
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Ikiru (1952)Living
Opening with a shot of an x-ray, showing the main character's stomach, 'Ikiru' tells the tale of a dedicated, downtrodden civil servant who, diagnosed with a fatal cancer, learns to change his dull, unfulfilled existence, and suddenly discovers a zest for life. Plunging first into self-pity, then a bout of hedonistic pleasure-seeking on the frenetic streets of post-war Tokyo, Watanable (Takashi Shimura) - the film's hero - finally finds satisfaction through building a children's playground. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Shin'ichi Himori
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Ran (1985)Revolt
Akira Kurosawa's acclaimed study of power, revenge and retribution is set against the magnificent backdrop of feudal warfare in sixteenth century Japan. Transposing the events of Shakespeare's King Lear to the blood-thirsty 'Period of Warring States', 'Ran' tells the story of a bitter power struggle within the family of Warlord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai). After fifty years of ruthless slaughter Hidetora divides his kingdom among his sons, seeking peaceful retirement. However, as his life descends into chaos, he is unable to escape the corruption within his family and the torment within his soul. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Tatsuya Nakadai, Seizô Katô, Akira Terao
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Yojimbo (1961)Yôjinbô / Bodyguard
The enigmatic samurai in Yojimbo is played by the great Toshiro Mifune as a scruffy, scratching, itinerant warrior who wanders into a strange town and right into the middle of two warring clans. Showing his skills with the samurai sword within minutes of his arrival, he soon has the town's rival factions competing for his services.Kurosawa's genius for storytelling combines with thrilling swordplay, a healthy dose of black humour, a soundtrack every bit as atmospheric and amusing as Ennio Morricone's, and a towering performance from Mifune, to make 'Yojimbo' an irresistible widescreen action movie. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Eijirô Tôno, Tatsuya Nakadai
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Rashomon (1950)Rashômon
A woodcutter experiences a horrific series of events - an ambush, rape and murder. In the telling of the tale however, each of the four participants give different views of what actually happened - is any of them telling the truth? Kurosawa's masterful film plays on the subjective nature of truth while unfurling a riveting tale of violence and greed. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Masayuki Mori
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Red Beard (1965)Akahige
Red Beard, the last and most ambitious of Kurosawa's collaborations with Toshiro Mifune, marks the end of one of the most remarkable actor-director relationships in the history of cinema. Toshiro Mifune plays a commanding but humane doctor in a rural clinic in late 19th-century Japan. An idle and socially ambitious intern (Yuzo Kayama) arrives at the clinic and discovers the meaning of responsibility, first to oneself and then to others. This intimate epic - and offbeat social drama - boldly mixes the styles of soap opera and the action movie, and rewards the viewer with a detailed reconstruction of a feudal era, a warmly humanitarian message and a powerhouse performance by Mifune. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Yûzô Kayama, Tsutomu Yamazaki
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The Bad Sleep Well (1960)Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru
Koichi Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) is a grieving son seeking revenge for the 'suicide' of his father. By assuming a new identity he rises through the ranks of the Public Corporation and cynically marries the President's daughter to better infiltrate the company and expose the corrupt practice that was responsible for his father's death. However, as Koichi falls in love with his wife, disaster looms. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Kyôko Kagawa
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Stray Dog (1949)Nora inu
A masterful mix of film noir and police thriller set on the sweltering mean streets of occupied Tokyo. When rookie detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) has his pistol stolen from his pocket while on a bus, his frantic attempts to track down the thief lead him to an illegal weapons market in the Tokyo Underworld. But the gun has already passed from the pickpocket to a young gangster, and Murakami's gun is identified as the weapon in the shooting of a woman. Murakami, overwhelmed with remorse, turns for help to his older and more experienced senior, Sato (a superb performance by Takashi Shimura). The race is on to find the shooter before he can strike again... - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji
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Sanjuro (1962)Tsubaki Sanjûrô
'Sanjuro' was a film made in response to popular demand. The previous year Kurosawa had scored a huge critical and commercial hit for his own production company with Yojimbo, which introduced the character calling himself 'Sanjuro' (which means simply 'thirty years old'), the scruffy, mercenary, cynical ronin (masterless samurai) played by Toshiro Mifune. The public had taken this maverick figure to their hearts and demanded a sequel. Originally Kurosawa had planned to give the script to another director, Hiromichi Horikawa, but finally decided to take it on himself. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiju Kobayashi
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Drunken Angel (1948)Yoidore tenshi
Dr. Sanada (Takashi Shimura), the drunken angel of the title, runs a clinic in the slums of Tokyo. When small-time hood Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifune) comes to his surgery after a gunfight Sanada diagnoses him with tuberculosis and convinces him to begin treatment. The disillusioned doctor feels that, by saving this young yakuza, he can retrieve a sense of his own lost youth and idealism. Thus they embark on a troubled friendship which is tested by the prejudices of the two and the release from prison of Matsunaga's mobster boss. Mifune, in his first major screen role, and Toho regular Shimura star together in a film which is part gangster, part melodrama and part social critique, establishing for the first time their dynamic relationship and the extraordinary on-screen chemistry which Kurosawa would explore further in films such as 'Stray Dog' and 'Seven Samurai'. Despite being Kurosawa's eighth feature, 'Drunken Angel' was the director's first critical success and the first film in which he 'finally discovered. The 'existential humanism' which made him famous is at the root of this extraordinary tale with the correlation between strength of spirit and physical well-being representing the two forces at work in post-war Japan. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Takashi Shimura, Toshirô Mifune, Reizaburô Yamamoto
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Throne of Blood (1957)Kumonosu-Jô / The Castle of the Spider's Web / Cobweb Castle / Spider Web Castle
Kurosawa's transposition of Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' to sixteenth century Japan is immensely successful in capturing the spirit of the original. A truly remarkable film combining beauty and terror to produce a mood of haunting power. 'Throne of Blood' also shows Kurosawa's familiar mastery of atmosphere, action and the savagery of war. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Minoru Chiaki, Isuzu Yamada
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High and Low (1963)Tengoku To Jigoku
Based on the Ed McBain novel, 'High and Low' is a gripping police thriller starring Toshiro Mifune. Wealthy industrialist Kingo Gondo (Mifune) faces an agonising choice when a ruthless kidnapper, aiming to snatch his young son, takes the chauffeur's boy by mistake - but still demands the ransom, leaving Gondo facing ruin if he pays up. An anatomy of the inequalities in modern Japanese society, High and Low is a complex film noir, where the intense police hunt for the kidnapper is accompanied by penetrating insight into the kidnappers state of mind. Kurosawa's virtuoso direction provides no easy answers, and in short, intense sequences, he portrays the businessman, the police and the criminal as equally brutal but nonetheless human. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Yutaka Sada, Tatsuya Nakadai
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The Idiot (1951)Hakuchi
Akira Kurosawa's 'The Idiot' - his only adaptation of a Fyodor Dostoevsky novel - was a cherished project on which it is claimed he expended more effort than on any other film. A darkly ambitious exploration of the depths of human emotion, it combines the talents of two of the greatest Japanese actors of their generation - Toshiro Mifune and Setsuko Hara. 'The Idiot' is perhaps the most contemplative of all Kurosawa's work, a tone which is heightened by the unusual, trance-like performances. Kurosawa's electrifying dramatisation uproots the novel's Russian Summer setting to a memorable, snowbound Hokkaido - the northern-most island of Japan, closest to Russia in climate and custom. War criminal Kameda (Masayuki Mori), reprieved from a death sentence, is fresh out of the asylum, mentally fragile, and prone to epileptic fits. In turn, his emotional involvement with two women (Setsuko Hara and Yoshiko Kuga) and his new, increasingly volatile friend Akama (Toshiro Mifune) lead him further into madness and gross tragedy. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Setsuko Hara, Masayuki Mori, Toshirô Mifune
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