Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dynamic style, strongly influenced by Western cinema yet distinct from it; he was involved with all aspects of film production.
Terror of Mechagodzilla is a 1975 Japanese kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, written by Yukiko Takayama, and produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka and Henry G. Saperstein, with special effects by Teruyoshi Nakano. Distributed by Toho and produced under their effects subsidiary Toho–Eizo, it is the 15th film in the Godzilla franchise, serving as a direct sequel to the 1974 film Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.
Masaki Kobayashi was a Japanese film director and screenwriter, best known for the epic trilogy The Human Condition (1959–1961), the samurai films Harakiri (1962) and Samurai Rebellion (1967), and the horror anthology Kwaidan (1964). Senses of Cinema described him as "one of the finest depicters of Japanese society in the 1950s and 1960s."
Seven Samurai is a 1954 Japanese epic samurai drama film co-written, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The story takes place in 1586 during the Sengoku period of Japanese history. It follows the story of a village of desperate farmers who seek to hire rōnin to combat bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops.
Ran is a 1985 epic action drama film directed, edited and co-written by Akira Kurosawa. The plot derives from William Shakespeare's King Lear and includes segments based on legends of the daimyō Mōri Motonari. The film stars Tatsuya Nakadai as Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging Sengoku-period warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons.
Throne of Blood is a 1957 Japanese jidaigeki film co-written, produced, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film transposes the plot of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth from Medieval Scotland to feudal Japan, with stylistic elements drawn from Noh drama. The film stars Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada in the lead roles, modelled on the characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
Sanjuro is a 1962 Japanese jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune. It is a sequel to Kurosawa's 1961 Yojimbo.
Rashomon is a 1950 Jidaigeki psychological thriller-crime film directed and written by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura as various people who describe how a samurai was murdered in a forest, the plot and characters are based upon Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story "In a Grove", with the title and framing story being based on "Rashōmon", another short story by Akutagawa. Every element is largely identical, from the murdered samurai speaking through a Shinto psychic to the bandit in the forest, the monk, the assault of the wife and the dishonest retelling of the events in which everyone shows his or her ideal self by lying.
Red Beard is a 1965 Japanese jidaigeki film co-written, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa, in his last collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune. Based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's 1959 short story collection, Akahige Shinryōtan, the film takes place in Koishikawa, a district of Edo, towards the end of the Tokugawa period, and is about the relationship between a town doctor and his new trainee. Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Humiliated and Insulted provided the source for a subplot about a young girl, Otoyo, who is rescued from a brothel.
Dreams is a 1990 magical realist anthology film of eight vignettes written and directed by Akira Kurosawa, starring Akira Terao, Martin Scorsese, Chishū Ryū, Mieko Harada and Mitsuko Baisho. It was inspired by actual recurring dreams that Kurosawa said he had repeatedly. It was his first film in 45 years in which he was the sole author of the screenplay. An international co-production of Japan and the United States, Dreams was made five years after Ran, with assistance from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, and funded by Warner Bros. The film was screened out of competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, and has consistently received positive reviews.
Dodes'ka-den is a 1970 Japanese drama film directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film stars Yoshitaka Zushi, Kin Sugai, Toshiyuki Tonomura, and Shinsuke Minami. It is based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's 1962 novel A City Without Seasons and is about a group of homeless people living in poverty on the outskirts of Tokyo.
Rhapsody in August is a 1991 Japanese film by Akira Kurosawa based on the novel Nabe no naka by Kiyoko Murata. The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, who lost her husband in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies. American film star Richard Gere appears as Suzujiro's son Clark. The film was selected as the Japanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
Hyakken Uchida was a Japanese author and academic.
The Lower Depths is a 1957 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, the screenplay by Hideo Oguni and Akira Kurosawa was based on the 1902 play The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky. The setting was changed for the film from late 19th-century Russia to Edo period Japan.
Kuroneko is a 1968 Japanese horror film directed by Kaneto Shindo, and an adaptation of a supernatural folktale. Set during a civil war in feudal Japan, the film's plot concerns the vengeful spirits, or onryō, of a woman and her daughter-in-law, who died at the hands of a band of samurai. It stars Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otowa, and Kiwako Taichi.
After the Rain is a 1999 Japanese and French film. The story is based on the last script written by Akira Kurosawa and is directed by his former assistant director of 28 years, Takashi Koizumi. It was awarded a Japanese Academy Award in 1999. It was chosen as Best Film at the Japan Academy Prize ceremony.
The Travelling Players is a 1975 Greek historical drama film written and directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos that traces the history of mid-20th-century Greece from 1939 to 1952.
Tsuchi (土), or Earth, is a 1939 Japanese film directed by Tomu Uchida, based on the classic 1912 Meiji era novel Tsuchi by poet Takashi Nagatsuka, translated into English as The Soil by historian Ann Waswo. The film won the 1940 Kinema Junpo Award for Best Film.
Kōji Mitsui was a Japanese movie, TV, and stage actor. He appeared in more than 150 films from 1925 to 1975, including 29 of Kinema Junpo’s annual Top-10 winners and three of its 10 best Japanese films of all time. In 2000 the magazine named him one of the 60 most important Japanese actors of the 20th century.
The legacy of filmmaking technique left by Akira Kurosawa (1910–1998) for subsequent generations of filmmakers has been diverse and of international influence beyond his native Japan. The legacy of influence has ranged from working methods, influence on style, and selection and adaptation of themes in cinema. Kurosawa's working method was oriented toward extensive involvement with numerous aspects of film production. He was also an effective screenwriter who would work in close contact with his writers very early in the production cycle to ensure high quality in the scripts which would be used for his films.
