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Akira Kurosawa
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Yvl

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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2006 3:04 am    Post subject: Akira Kurosawa Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I've recently been thoroughly exposed to the amazing works of the director Akira Kurosawa through a class about how he portrayed the history of Japan. This is the guy who wrote and directed the movies "The Seven Samurai," and "Yojimbo," both of which have been remade into western movies (The Magnificent Seven and A Fistful of Dollars, respectively.) He's also known for his friendship with the actor Toshiro Mifune, who appeared in most of his films.

His influence on the film industry is unbelievable. For example: During a slump in his career, he visited America and met George Lucas, who had just finished Star Wars. George Lucas told him that he had gotten some of the inspiration for Star Wars from Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress." George Lucas helped him get up off his feet by helping him get funding for his later films, and Steven Speilburg later assisted him as well.

His films have also been mentioned in .hack through a conversation with the character Sanjuro.

My favorite movie of his was "Rashomon." It's about... well, its "about" a rape and murder, but only in the same sense that Evangelion is "about" giant robots, or Hamlet is "about" an insane prince. I've never seen so much depth in a movie. Well, all of his movies have alot of depth to them and always deal with deception and illusions, but this is just the kind of thing that leaves you entranced for hours after it finishes.

If you have not seen many of his movies, I strongly reccomend you do so. And to those of you who have seen his movies, share your thoughts on them.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2006 8:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Seven Samurai was real, real good. Kikuchiyo, is always and has been my favorite character in the movie. Although unfortunately it's the only akira Kurosawa movie I've ever seen. I saw Yojimbo at the DVD store the other day. Might as well buy that.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 1:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I see Rashomon as my favorites of all of Kurosawa's films. He's done more epic and even better films after Rashomon, but none can match the storytelling and the brilliance of pulling off four divergent storylines about one event and make all four worth watching. It is also Kurosawa's best attempt in trying to give some sort of meaning to the hard theme and subject of the nature of reality. Is it something concrete that has set rules and patterns or is reality more subjective which is clearly influenced by each individual's own mores, principles, beliefs and personal history.

This film has been such an influence of future filmmakers and screenwriters that the title has become a word to describe stories and films with similar diverging storylines about a singular event. Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects could be seen as Rashomon-esque. Zhang Yimou's Hero borrows heavily on this technique. And through all the many films that's borrowed the use of this way of storytelling none can still reach the level of Kurosawa's film of the same title.

Alot of people who have been introduced to Akira Kurosawa's work always seem to think he only does samurai epics or stories based during the Japan's past Feudal Age. I would agree that his best work has mostly been when he spends time with the samurai, but he's done very great films in more modern settings. Two that comes quickly to mind for me are Madadayo and Stray Dog. I especially like the latter which he made in 1949. It still marks as one of the best noir-films made to this day and for a non-Westerner he sure was able to grasp the themes and intricacies of what constitutes a noir story.
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Yvl

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 2:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Since my sister was over this weekend, we celebrated Christmas early. Apparantly one of my presents was the box set (for no set is complete without a box!) of Akira Kurosawa's best films. It's arriving in the mail at some point.

Since the class I was taking was a history class, we only watched the samurai films. With the box set on the way, I'll finally be able to see some of the modern-day settings. I read in his autobiography that there was a scene in "Drunken Angel" that left the entire cast of the film crying, including him. He couldnt even muster up the strength to say, "Cut," and the camera man had to do it himself.

Just what is a noir story, Tull? I've never heard that term.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 2:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Film noir as defined in Wiktionary means a type of genre film / movie characterized by low-key lighting, a bleak urban setting, and corrupt, cynical or desperate characters. It's basically the film version of the hardboiled crime thrillers popularized in print during the 1920's through the 40's by authors such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, James M. Cain and Jim Thompson.

Examples of film noirs of recent memory that people may recognize are Robert Rodriguez's Sin City, Roman Polanski's Chinatown Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential. The most prolific modern director of film noir (though some would call it neo-noir which I think is bunk. Either a film is noir or not) is Michael Mann and his series of noir starting with Thief then followed-up with the classic Heat and more recently Collateral and Miami Vice.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 2:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

To the surprise of probably no one, the only Akira Kurosawa related show I've watched is the anime adaptation of his Seven Samurai film, titled Samurai Seven. As I understand it, it's the same basic premise, just with a bit of a sci-fi spin on it. The anime was good, and actually made me want to watch the live action film that inspired it.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 2:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

AHHH! That's what those kinds of films are called! I knew they had to have a name!
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Yeah, there's quite a bit of films that fall under that genre in one way or another. Tarantino is a big name in keeping the pulp fiction origins on film noir alive with films such as Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. Then there's the type of noir film that really makes use of the sexual nature of the story with films like Body Heat and Basic Instinct.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Anyway, I'm hoping that Stray Dog is in the box set now. Madadayo was one of his later films, wasn't it? After he and Toshiro Mifune split?
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Way after he and Mifune split. I would say about twenty or so years since they last worked together. The Kurosawa and Mifune duo and the work they accomplished together was as good as any, or even better than the collaborations between Martin Scorcese and Robert DeNiro.

The best way to watch Kurosawa would be to find and buy all the Criterion Collection dvds that's been released of his films. It's not a complete set, but it's really the only way to watch Kurosawa now. The only exception to this would be his adaptation of King Lear with the film Ran which a different company releases, but luckily the latest dvd edition of Ran is as good as any Criterion Collection of Kurosawa's films.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Ooh, Ran was very good too. I just saw that the other day. When I read about it in the textbook for that class, I could have sworn that some of the photos from the film were very well-done paintings.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Well, it helps that some of those scenes were taken directly off of actual paintings Kurosawa did while preparing for the film. Akira had an affinity for painting landscapes and scenery which really makes sense since he's considered one of the masters of the wide-shot scenes of forest vistas. Something he admired and learned from watching alot of John Ford's Westerns with its lingering shots of the Southwest desert canyons and plains.

What I liked about Ran is how he takes a well-adapted Shakespearean play and gives it a fresh new life as a Feudal Japan samurai epic. It also helps bookend Rashomon to finish off his final trip down the samurai path. Where the earlier film takes on the meaning of reality, Ran is Kurosawa's attempt to look into the world of power and madness and it's chaotic consequence when people begin to covet it. In fact, the title Ran translated means "Chaos". And if you watched that film from beginning to end that's what occurs in gradual steps until everyone involved has been touched by it in some way.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 4:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Wheeeee, Kurosawa. A month ago I picked up a really cheap copy of Sanjuro (since it's getting replaced soon, and it was one of the funnest movies I've seen. It moves along like a breeze, and bam! it's over before you know it. It's also only 90 some minutes long, which is great compared to some of Kurosawa's more insanely long films. Seven Samurai is great, and it's never boring, but it's hard to take a four hour chunk out of your day.

Yojimbo and Sanjuro should be getting rereleased in January. I'm really looking forward to it (even though I won't be able to get it right away), not only because of improved image, but the box art looks great too.

But my favorite is Ikiru. It's constructed in a very different manner and uses lots of flashback, which is normally bad, but here they push the plot along powerfully. And the chronicle of one man's effect (and lack of effect) on others in very moving. That song he sings gets me every time. His voice is just... so ethereal.

If you like Kurosawa, I'd suggest looking at Mizoguchi, one of Kurosawa's contemporaries/influences and originally much more highly regarded in Japan (still is in lots of elitist critical circles). Unfortunately not much of his work is on DVD, but Criterion's release of Ugetsu is great and well worth a viewing. There's also Yasujiro Ozu, but his style is so different that I wouldn't suggest someone go into him unprepared.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Kenji Mizoguchi's Gion Bayashi aka A Geisha is the only film of Mizoguchi's I've been able to see and I liked it very much. It's not often Japanese directors of that era take on the darker side of Japanese history. But with the dearth of Mizoguchi's work not being on high-quality transfers (I saw Gion Bayashi at a Japanese Film Festival at San Francisco's Japantown) it's hard to gauge how the rest of his work realistically.

The two other Japanese contemporaries of Kurosawa that notes recommendation for bringing their own brand of filmmaking to Japanese cinema are Mayasaki Kobayashi and Kaneto Shindo. Masayaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan and Harakiri are two of the best non-Kurosawa Feudal Japan films I've seen with the former being an anthology comprising of four gothic tales from Feudal Japan era. This film shows that even that early in Japanese cinema history they've gotten a better grasp of how to create a sense of dread and mood through lighting and a minimalist approach to the scenes that would become a staple of Japanese gothic horror during the 90's with such films as Ringu, Ju-On, Kairo and Dark Water. Kaneto Shindo also does great gothic horror with his Onibaba film. The rest of Shindo's work were not as well-regarded as Onibaba but still better than most of the stuff that came out Japan during the early 60's up to the late 80's. He gets a vote from me for being one of their better directors just directing some of the Zatoichi films which was their James Bond franchise but lasting much longer with more sequels.
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PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 5:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Started thinking about him recently and found this topic. Akira Kurosawa probably is my most highly regarded director ever, I've seen all his movies (I think) and not one was hard for me to watch or made me dislike it. The latest film of his I watched was Ikiru (To Live) and even though it's not a story of Feudal Japan, it has to be one of my favorite so far, Takashi Shimura (also my favorite actor) plays in it as a bureaucrat named Watanabe who wastes most of his life just killing time at his job which equally is stressed throughout the film - is useless. He suffers from stomach pains early in the movie and it is later revealed he he has bowel cancer (and gives himself about 6 months to live), this causes Watanabe to radically rethink his life and where he is in it. What is to follow are scenes of joy, sadness and Watanabe's eventual recognition as having done something good and productive in his life. I enjoyed it greatly and I know I will be watching it through again, just like so many of his other movies.

As Kurosawa has made a lot of movies on Samurai, this naturally makes him a director I'd be interested in. But he focuses on different issues and situations that apply to that time and this as well, and does it in such a way (like Rashomon and Ikiru) that it really makes you think, and think deeply. One thing I've noticed about his movies is that I think he likes rain, either that or when it rained in Japan they just kept shooting anyway. :P
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