Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai

It is not just The Magnificent Seven. Just about any film the follows the recruitment of a rag-tag team for a daunting mission (like The Dirty Dozen) owes a debt of gratitude to the classic chanbara-jidaigeki film. It is also the film that converted so many fans to the samurai genre, thanks to its lofty rankings on so many critical polls. Seventy years after its initial release, it still holds up as a masterpiece. Anyone who has yet to see it should take advantage of the new 4K-restoration of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, which opens today in New York, at Film Forum.

As in The Magnificent Seven and scores of imitators, a peaceful village of farmers is beset by a nasty band of bandits, who cruelly leave the peasants just enough to carry on, so they can return a few months later to plunder them again. Rikichi is so fed up, he convinces the village, with the ancient headman’s blessing, to pool their resources to hire samurai. Most scorn their meager offer. However, crusty but commanding Kambei Shimada is sympathetic but reluctant to commit. Yet, when he hears the other crude hostel tenants mock the farmers’ misfortunes, it shames him into agreeing.

Slowly but surely, Shimada enlists six more samurai who are willing and able—or at least willing. His former lieutenant Shichiroji recruits Heihachi Hayashida, even though his skills are “barely mediocre,” because his sense of humor will raise their spirits, which Shimada appreciates. They are not even all samurai. Kikuchiyo (as they call him) is clearly a pretender, whom they reject several times, but he keeps following them like a stray dog anyway. Of course, technically none of them are samurai, except maybe the young and high-born Katsushiro Ojamoto. The other five are ronin, or masterless samurai, but definitely close enough for government work.

The first half hour, out of its epic three and a half, is a bit slow, but then Kurosawa methodical approach really starts to pay dividends. As Shimada tours the village and plans the defenses, the audience gets a preview of the battle that will come. We also meet many of the villagers, particularly, the virginal Shino, whom Katsushiro falls in love with, and her hotheaded protective father Manzo. However, unlike the classic John Sturges western, the bandits are never given much character development, so there is no strong equivalent to Eli Wallach. Instead, we are watching everything from the inside, according the perspective of the samurai and farmers.

The battle sequences remain quite spectacular. Even if it was not a direct source of inspiration, Kurosawa’s big climatic battle laid the foundation for that in Miike’s 13 Assassins and other such action films, from around the world.

Takashi Shimura (who was in the #1 and #3 top-grossing Japanese films of 1954, Seven Samurai and Godzilla) is a true joy playing Shimada. Arguably, he also establishes the template for the grizzled but wise senior action figure that stars like Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood would embody for decades to come. Seiji Miyaguchi is also nearly iconic and influential as the stoic swordsman/gunslinger Kyuzo.

Kurosawa’s Ran

It was a triumph interrupted by tragedy. Shooting was halted three times on Akira Kurosawa’s monumental fusion of Shakespeare’s King Lear and the legend of feudal lord Mōri Motonari, due to the deaths of his regular fight choreographer Ryu Kuze, his soundman since Stray Dog, Fumio Yanoguchi, and his wife and sounding board, Yôko Yaguchi. Nevertheless, Kurosawa still finished the film that would forever cement his reputation as one of the world’s greatest filmmakers. Still as overwhelming as ever, the 4K restoration of Kurosawa’s final straight-up masterpiece Ran (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York, at Film Forum.

During the Sengoku Era, daughters were not allowed to inherit—hence, Lord Hidetora Ichimonji’s three sons. His son Saburo loves him best, but the Daimyo cannot see past the young man’s rash, impetuous behavior. Technically, Jiro is the most Machiavellian of the brothers, but even he is no match for Taro’s wife, Lady Kaede. She harbors a deeply-burning grudge against Lord Hidetora for slaughtering her family after their arranged marriage. Ichimonji caught the clan of Jiro’s wife Lady Sué similarly unaware, yet her profound Buddhist faith prevented her suffering from corroding her spirit. Consequently, she is the only person who inspires guilt in the old warlord.

Like Lear, Ichimonji concludes he must abdicate and name his successor to insure long-term stability. Of course, it will have the exact opposite effect. Although Saburo is the most talented and worthy, Lord Hidetora names Taro instead. Understanding the possible ramifications only too well, Lady Kaede spurs Taro to consolidate and codify his new power. This deeply disappoints his father, who finds himself essentially stripped of the emeritus status he had envisioned for himself. War is inevitable and the carnage will be spectacular.

It is almost impossible to recognize the iconically handsome Tatsuya Nakadai (the all business cop in High and Low and Mifune’s very different adversaries in Yojimbo and Sanjuro) under all the make-up transforming him into Ichimonji. Nevertheless, he vividly and poignantly expresses Ichimonji’s increasingly erratic mental state. However, Mieko Harada upstages everyone and everything as the ferocious Lady Kaede (an original character with no analog in Lear or the tales of Mōri). It is a huge ensemble, most of whom labor under dehumanizing circumstances, obscured by rain, smoke, and helmets. However, Hisashi Igawa adds intriguing heft and nuance as Jiro’s general, Kurogane, perhaps one of the film’s few characters with principals.

Frankly, there will probably never be another motion picture that devotes so much time and resources to filming battle scenes that is not first and foremost a war movie. Ran is high classical tragedy several times over, but it also features some absolutely stunning scenes of Sixteenth Century warfighting. It is one of the few films that lives up to and even surpasses its reputation as a career-capping masterpiece. It is sort of incredible that Kurosawa was able look through a camera lens again following the epic production of Ran, but did indeed make three more quite nice, but considerably smaller films (including a contribution to a multi-director anthology). Very highly recommended, the 4K restoration, in all its dazzling color, opens this Friday (2/26) at Film Forum.

A.K.: Don’t Call It a “Making of”

It is a little ironic the notoriously camera-shy Chris Marker made several documentaries about other filmmakers, but at least he understood who was more interesting. Although Marker’s critical cult has won new adherents in recent years, there is no comparison between him and Akira Kurosawa, especially in 1985 when the Japanese auteur was helming his last great epic masterpiece, Ran. Marker tries to keep out of Kurosawa’s shots as he observes the master at work in A.K. (clip here), which opens at Film Forum this Friday, a week ahead of Ran.

Kurosawa’s iconic hat and sunglasses are instantly recognizable. Just seeing him rehearse the heck out of the nearly as legendary Tatsuya Nakadai is almost worth the price of admission—and watch we shall. While there is a fair amount of narration, it is mostly ruminative in nature, rather than descriptive or informative. It seems Marker was justly in awe of Kurosawa and finds every grand working method to be a revelation.

Those looking for “making of” details might be disappointed, but there are a few tantalizing glimpses of a scene that was agonizingly hand-crafted, only to be scrapped in the editing room. All that grass painted gold went for naught Marker’s narrator tells us.

Marker never even dares approach Kurosawa, Nakadai, or the longtime collaborators he dubs “the Seven Samurai,” instead just showing them plugging away on the set. Granted, talking head interviews are not so Markerian. Perhaps he was also worried he would start kowtowing and chanting “I’m not worthy,” like Wayne and Garth. However, the upshot is we do not get any final words of a summation from Toho Studios’ renowned sound technician Fumio Yanoguchi, who passed away shortly after A.K. wrapped filming.

If nothing else, A.K. teases Ran quite effectively. As a documentary in its right, it is awkwardly betwixt and between. Marker’s insights never run particularly deep, but his peaks behind-the-scenes are not detailed or geeky enough to satisfy armchair film school students. Frankly, it was probably not the right project for Marker, but it is infinitely more watchable than the leftist agitprop he might have otherwise produced. For the hardest of hardcore Kurosawa fans and Marker’s regular apologists, A.K. opens this Friday (2/19) at Film Forum, in advance of the 4K restoration of Ran.

Kurosawa Centennial: Yojimbo

As he did in Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa created an influential cinematic template with the first film appearance of Toshirō Mifune’s nameless ronin, which has since been copied in dozens of films around the globe. Yojimbo’s story of a mysterious drifter who cleans up a corrupt small town by playing two rival gangs against each other clearly inspired Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, Walter Hill’s Last Man Standing, and Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django, as well as a host of lesser known imitators. Yojimbo’s influence even extended to jazz when Jason Moran covered its theme on his first trio CD, Facing Left. Indeed, Mifune’s slacker samurai would prove so popular, he would soon return in Kurosawa’s follow-up, Sanjuro, which screens together with Yojimbo (trailer here) as a double feature during Film Forum’s retrospective celebration of the Kurosawa centennial.

A master-less samurai walks into the crummiest town in Edo Japan. How bad is it? Stray dogs walk down the street with severed hands clenched in their jaws. Rival crime lords have waged a prolonged war that has depressed all local commercial activity, except the casket-maker’s business, where orders are booming. Getting the lay of the land from the local tavern-keeper, the crafty swordsman decides to clean-up the town by manipulating the two gangs into killing wiping each other out. Fortunately, sake helps him think.

When pressed for his name, the nameless one replies, “Kuwabatake Sanjuro,” which roughly translates as “Mulberry field, thirty years old.” Being one big, bad customer, both gang leaders want to hire him, ostensibly as a “yojimbo” or bodyguard. Of course, neither side deserves much sympathy, but Ushi-Tora’s faction backed by the local sake merchant is arguably much worse, having kidnapped the wife of an unlucky gambler to settle his debts. They also turn out to be more dangerous, thanks to the return of Unosake, Ushi-Tora’s pistol packing younger brother, (played by Tatsuya Nakadai, who would return as a different foil for the ronin in the sequel, Sanjuro).

If Mifune’s cynical mercenary who still lives by his bushido code sounds like a familiar character type, it is because Yojimbo set the standard for all the mysterious drifter films that followed. Of his many collaborations Kurosawa, “Sanjuro” might be Mifune’s most enduring, quintessential screen role. Often humorous, sometimes deadly furious, but always larger than life, it is a true movie star performance.

Though considered a jidaigeki or Edo period drama, Yojimbo also shares a certain kinship with some of Kurosawa’s film noirs. Inspired by American westerns and perhaps the novels of Dashiell Hammett, it would in turn inspire the spaghetti westerns of Leone and Corbucci, which Takashi Miike would eventually re-import back into Edo Japan with Sukiyaki. Yet, no subsequent film has approached the mastery of Yojimbo. Though acknowledged as one of Kurosawa’s masterworks, it should not be considered stuffy, pretentious art-house cinema. Yojimbo is too much fun to be missed due to reverse cinematic snobbery. It screens during Film Forum’s outstanding Kurosawa retrospective on Wednesday (2/3).

Kurosawa Centennial: Red Beard

Dr. Kyojō Niide is the House M.D. of Nineteenth Century Edo. Actually, Niide’s bedside manner is not that bad with his needy patients, but he terrifies his under-compensated subordinates at his free charity clinic. He offers a heck of an education though in Akira Kurosawa’s Red Beard (trailer here), one of the richly diverse films screening during Film Forum’s retrospective celebration of the Kurosawa centennial.

Red represents a significant turning point in Kurosawa’s career. Not only would it be his final black-and-white film, it would also be his last screen collaboration with actor Toshirō Mifune, with whom the director would have a falling out during the course of the Red’s prolonged shooting schedule. Not surprisingly, Mifune appears as the film’s burly, no-nonsense title character, Dr Niide, nicknamed “Red Beard” in honor of his distinctively hued facial hair.

In addition to medicine, Niide also knows most of the town’s scandals, which allows him to shake down wealthy patients to fund his charity clinic. He can also lay a beat-down on anyone foolish enough to hinder him on a mission of mercy, as a gang of pimps and lowlifes learn first-hand. However, it is not the sort of practice the arrogant young Dr. Noboru Yasumoto envisioned for himself. Unfortunately, he has been temporarily consigned to Niide’s service following the embarrassing termination of his engagement.

A contest of wills naturally ensues, as the petulant Yasumoto sulks and shirks, hoping Niide will eventually send him away in disgust. Yeah sure, get Toshirō Mifune to back down—good luck with that. Of course, as series of episodic crises unfold at the clinic, Yasumoto has a dramatic change of heart.

Thanks to several elaborately constructed sets, Niide’s clinic seems like a very real place with its own peculiar rhythms. Against this evocative backdrop, musician-turned actor Yūzō Kayama is reasonably convincing portraying Yasumoto’s evolution from snob to earnest do-gooder. Appropriately stern and blunt, Mifune is always great fun to watch in all his scenes. Yet, the rest of the ensemble performances are quite sensitive, even affecting, particularly Terumi Niki as Otoyo, a young girl Niide and Yasumoto rescue from a brothel. Indeed, her redemptive relationship with the younger doctor provides some of the film’s best moments.

While Red is quite episodic, the overarching story of Yasumoto’s humanist awakening is still rather rewarding. At over three hours in length, it also represents an even better value for your ticket buying dollar than Kurosawa’s The Idiot. It is a big, heart-on-its-sleeve melodrama, spiced with some pungent attitude and the occasional smack-down courtesy of Mifune. Well worth savoring even if it is not in the top tier of Kurosawa’s masterpieces, Red screens at Film Forum this coming Tuesday (2/2) as part of their continuing Kurosawa centennial retrospective.

Kurosawa Centennial: Rashomon

Beyond winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion, the influence of Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 masterpiece is constantly seen in dozens of televisions series looking to temporarily break format. Many diverse shows, including the likes of House, The X-Files, and Fame have all done Rashomon episodes, usually trying to exploit their characters wildly divergent accounts of the same event for comedic event. However, Kurosawa’s Rashomon was a darkly serious examination of human nature and the elusiveness of truth and justice. An indispensible classic from Kurosawa’s considerable filmography, Rashomon (trailer here) screens next Thursday as part of the Film Forum’s retrospective celebration of the Kurosawa centennial, the gift to cineastes that keeps on giving.

It is impossible to say what happened that fateful day in the woods, but it whatever the truth might be, it was awful. A priest and a lowly woodcutter were called to testify and what they heard left them shaken. Seeking refuge under the battered city gate during a deluge, they relate the disturbing court testimony to an insensitive drifter. The two witnesses were the last people to see a samurai and his wife before they encountered the dreaded bandit Tajōmaru. The competing accounts of the captured bandit, the victimized woman, the dead man’s spirit (channeled by a medium), and the woodcutter, largely agree Tajōmaru either roughly “seduced” or outright raped the woman, but what happened next varies drastically depending on the narrative.

Much is made of how greatly each character’s version of the truth differs, but analysis of Rashomon often overlooks the commonalities. In each story, something truly terrible transpires between the samurai and his wife after her attack, causing the young priest to question his fundamental assumptions regarding human nature. Indeed, the framing device is the most important part of the film. Great effort and expense went into creating the hulking Rashomon Gate set and it is through the drama that plays out there between the three strangers that Kurosawa really makes his statement about the nature of man.

The woodcutter is the sort of role Takashi Shimura seemed born to play—timid, somewhat compromised, but ultimately redemptive. As the notorious brigand, Toshirō Mifune goes over the top and around the bend, but his craziness adds an undeniable edge that heightens Rashomon’s unsettling effect. Yet, it is the haunting performance of Machiko Kyō, simultaneously heartbreaking and baffling, that truly defines the film.

From the subjectivity of its competing narratives to cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa’s use of sunlight and shadow, Rashomon has been enormously influential, inspiring a host of inferior imitators, like Jennifer Lynch’s absolutely dreadful Surveillance. Surprisingly subtle given its reputation and Mifune’s go-for-broke performance, it remains an intriguing puzzle of film. A masterful milestone of international cinema, no Kurosawa retrospective would be complete without it. A newly restored 35mm print screens next Thursday (1/28) at Film Forum as their celebration of the Kurosawa centennial continues.

Kurosawa Centennial: The Bad Sleep Well

A public authority has engaged in a massive bid fixing scheme worth billions of yen with a private construction firm. It might sound like an edgy contemporary “ripped from the headlines” thriller, but it is actually a 1960 film noir classic from Akira Kurosawa. Indeed, Film Forum proves there is far more to Kurosawa’s filmography than samurai films when The Bad Sleep Well (trailer here) screens as part of their month long celebration of the towering director’s centennial (1910-2010).

Vague rumors of corruption are swirling around the Unutilized Land Development Corporation. Much to the delight of a cynical pack of reporters, the wedding of Vice President Iwabuchi’s daughter Yoshiko to his corporate secretary Koichi Nishi is interrupted by the arrest of Wada, a financial middle manager. The drama does not end there though. When an enormous cake shaped like an office building arrives, it seems to suck all the oxygen out of the room.

Scandal seems to follow Iwabuchi. In a previous position, his subordinate leaped to his death after finding himself implicated in another corruption probe. That window is conspicuously identified on the mystery cake. What Iwabuchi does not know is that his secretary and son-in-law is actually the illegitimate son of the man who died as a result of his graft. Having assumed the identity of a friend with a clean record, the man now known as Nishi is out for some stone cold revenge. Unfortunately, one unforeseen development complicates his plan. Nishi has fallen in love with his wife.

Often considered Kurosawa’s Hamlet, Sleep is a revenge tragedy that has ample precedent in Japanese literature and drama. Though set at least one hundred years apart, there are strong parallels between Sleep and the story of the vengeful Yukinojo Nakamura who Kon Ichikawa eventually brought to the screen in the classic Revenge of a Kabuki Actor. In both cases, sons insinuate themselves into the company of the men deemed responsible for their fathers’ death. Under an assumed identity, they manipulate their targets, turning them against each other. In the process, both lose their hearts to a woman close to their top targets. However, Sleep is far darker and more jaded than the Meiji set Kabuki.

Indeed, Sleep is quite withering in its depiction of corporate-government corruption and the misplaced sense of personal honor that ironically protects the guilty. Frequent Kurosawa Toshirō Mifune is typically intense as the honor-bound Nishi, almost unrecognizable in such a different context than the scruffy samurai and ronin he is best known for playing. However, it is Kyoko Kagawa and Kamatari Fujiwara who memorably provide the film’s conscience as Yoshiko and Wada, respectively.

The unsentimental Sleep is one of many great films from a master filmmaker. Part of a 28-film retrospective that is a true New Year’s gift to film lovers, Sleep screens at Film Forum on January 26th. The Kurosawa Centennial series continues through February 18th, with new films screening nearly every day in January.

Kurosawa Centennial: No Regrets for Our Youth

The university students in Kyoto like to march around in their caps while denouncing evil industrialists, but they are not so eager to take direct action. As a result, only the daughter of their professor and her lover emerge as heroic figures in Akira Kurosawa’s No Regrets for Our Youth, a highly politicized story of Japanese war dissenters. Released during the early years of the American occupation of Japan, Regrets is also considered Kurosawa’s only film featuring a female lead protagonist, setting it apart from the rest of Film Forum’s twenty-eight film retrospective celebration of the Kurosawa centennial, where it screens this Monday as half of a double feature of the director’s lesser-known post-war films.

Yukie Yagihara just wants to play the piano and flirt her father’s students. Noge though, is too serious for such frivolities, deeply concerned as he is with Japanese military expansionism in Manchuria. His classmate Itokawa is also duly troubled, but he will cringingly submit to Yagihara’s every whim. However, when Professor Yagihara is fired for his dissenting views, his daughter starts to understand the seriousness of the events unfolding around her.

As in most grand political epics, the professor’s formerly close protégés inevitably take diametrically opposed roads, with Itokawa becoming a government prosecutor while Noge does time in prison. Of course, there is no question who Yagihara will choose when all three wind up in Tokyo several years later. Yet, her romance with Noge is doomed to be short-lived, since the government (and most likely Itokawa) knows Noge is up to something at his think tank (suspiciously dedicated to Chinese area studies).

While addressing pre-war dissent so bluntly in post-war Japan must have been a bit of a touchy proposition, the leftist slant of Regrets probably assured it of a favorable international reception. In fact, it is quite a historically important film simply by virtue of dramatizing the Japanese war resistance, which remains largely overlooked in comparison to their European counterparts. Still, at times the film seems markedly idiosyncratic, as when blaring headlines announce “Academic Freedom Crushed” (but evidently freedom of the press was alive and well). The film even takes a weird Maoist-like turn when Yagihara finds redemption toiling in the rice paddies of her hardscrabble in-laws.

Yes, Kurosawa could make films without Toshirō Mifune. In this case, Susumu Fujita is a reasonably credible Mifune surrogate as the driven Noge, but it is truly Setsuko Hara’s film. She convincingly handles each step of her character’s emotional maturation and political awakening, while unflaggingly holding the audience’s sympathies and attention. Although her romantic chemistry with Fujita is not particularly memorable, her work with Denjirō Ōkōchi ranks as some of the most compelling father-daughter scenes in immortalized on film.

Though Regrets is a very personal story of one woman’s trials and travails, Kurosawa gives it the feel of a sweeping epic. It is an absorbing film, even if it does occasionally trip over its own ideologies and good intentions. Well worth seeing, it screens at Film Forum this coming Monday (1/25).

Kurosawa Centennial: Scandal

It could be considered Akira Kurosawa’s Christmas movie—sort of. Partly set during the Christmas season, there are Christmas trees, caroling, and plenty of old fashioned tear-jerking in Scandal (trailer here), an early postwar melodrama screening during Film Forum’s twenty-eight film retrospective of the Kurosawa centennial (1910-2010).

Ichirô Aoye is a talented painter of some renown. Miyako Saijo is a beautiful, camera-shy singer much in demand by the press. They would make a perfect couple, but they are not together. So when scandal sheet paparazzi capture them in an innocent but suggestive looking situation, the outraged Aoye files suit. Unfortunately, he hires Hiruta, a compulsive gambling lush of an attorney to represent him. Though hardly blind to his counsel’s faults, Aoye retains him out of sympathy for his angelic bed-ridden daughter, Masako. Needless to say, this is a bad legal strategy.

Obviously, there is something brewing between the not-lovers, but Kurosawa is more interested in Hiruta’s loathing self-contempt. As Masako’s growing suspicions of her father’s corruption weaken her condition, Scandal definitely heads into hanky territory. Like a true melodrama, it all heads towards an emotional courtroom showdown.

While Aoye probably was not the character Toshirō Mifune was born to play, he at least exudes a certain square-jawed likability. Likewise, singer-actress Shirley Yamaguchi (born Yoshiko Yamaguchi in China to Japanese parents before eventually becoming a member of Japan’s Parliament) is appropriately glamorous and her voice is indeed quite lovely in the underwritten role of Saijo. However, most of the heavy-lifting acting falls to Takashi Shimura as the sharply-drawn Hiruta. Though he conveys a compelling sense of pathos, the cringe-inducing self-hatred becomes somewhat repetitive after a while.

Yes, Scandal gets more than a little corny, but that sentimentality gives it an old-school Hollywood sweetness that is refreshing in a way. Though not particularly remarkable, it is an interesting commentary on Japan’s emerging tabloid journalism. Ultimately, Scandal’s somewhat quirky charm adds another dimension to the Film Forum’s impressive Kurosawa survey. It screens this coming Sunday (1/24).

Kurosawa Centennial: Drunken Angel

Dr. Sanada will never be confused with Dr. Kildare. A borderline drunk with a terrible bedside manner and a shady past, he is not exactly your stereotypical kindly movie doctor. However, for those that contract tuberculosis in the post-war Tokyo slums, he is the man to see in Akira Kurosawa’s gangster morality play Drunken Angel, which screens this Saturday during Film Forum’s twenty-eight film retrospective celebration of the Kurosawa centennial.

Sanada’s practice might not be much, but at least he has the opportunity to gauge yakuza seeking emergency treatment in the dead of night. As Angel opens he is digging a bullet out of the arm of Matsunaga, the yakuza’s interim honcho for the neighborhood, sans anesthesia. Sanada also offers a bonus diagnosis to the chronically hacking gangster: he has TB.

Matsunaga initially prefers denial to treatment, but Sanada is a persistent quack. He also appreciates the yakuza’s ready access to real booze. Just as the young tough acquiesces to Sanada’s treatment, Okada, his yakuza senior, is released from prison. Looking to reassert himself over his old territory and Miyo, his frightened former mistress now working as Sanada’s nurse, Okada is definitely bad news, but Matsunaga believes himself honor bound to the sinister gangster. With his career deteriorating faster than his body, violence seems inevitable for Matsunaga, and Kurosawa does not disappoint.

Angel is particularly notable for two things. It offers an opportunity to see Toshirō Mifune shake his tail-feather to popular Japanese swing vocalist Shizuko Kasagi’s “Jungle Boogie” and it was the first of many celebrated collaborations between the actor and director. It also features Takashi Shimura, who was already something of a Kurosawa regular. They were indeed perfectly cast as the dissipated but still deadly Matsunaga and the cynical healer, respectively. Mifune’s smoldering heat and Shimura’s shrewdly restrained cool obviously proved to be a great pairing, which Kurosawa would quickly recombine in classics like Stray Dog.

If one can set aside expectations for another Kurosawa masterpiece like Seven Samurai or Throne of Blood, Angel is actually a nifty little gangster drama, featuring a tense climatic struggle between two of the gauntest looking gangsters you are ever likely to see on film. Though Angel is also famous for the veiled anti-American references Kurosawa slipped past the occupation censors, they are largely lost on viewers not cued to look for them. More importantly, he creates a powerful sense of the dank, disease infested slums and uses a mournful guitar theme to create an eerie noir vibe.

Explicitly likening bacterial disease to the yakuza’s moral corruption, Angel alternates between wildly feverish and grimly naturalistic vibes. Overall, it is a socially pointed but still quite entertaining excursion into film noir territory. It screens Saturday (1/23) at Film Forum.

Kurosawa Centennial: High and Low

It is always interesting to see an international auteur tackle the hardboiled American detective novel. While Donald Westlake’s source novel The Jugger is almost completely unrecognizable in Jean-Luc Godard’s eccentric Marxist adaptation Made in U.S.A., Ed McBain’s King’s Ransom (an 87th Precinct novel) fortunately landed in Akira Kurosawa’s more sympathetic hands. The resulting High and Low (trailer here) still holds up as a top-notch film noir police procedural. Demonstrating Kurosawa’s versatility as a filmmaker, High screens during Film Forum’s laudably thorough celebration of the master director’s centennial.

Kingo Gondo makes shoes, but he does it well. He has clawed his way to the top of the production department of National Shoes, without succumbing to pressure to cut corners. Making a bold play, Gondo has leveraged everything to buy an independently held block of stock that would give him controlling interest. Then in flash, Gondo’s life is undone when his son is kidnapped. Except, it is not his son that was taken, but that of his chauffeur. Yet, even when the mistake is revealed, the kidnapper holds fast to his exorbitant ransom demand, leading to a crisis of conscience for Gondo.

In many ways, Gondo is a hero in the Ayn Rand tradition. Truly, he could care less of the trappings of wealth, solely seeking the satisfaction of creating something of enduring value. Still, Objectivists will ultimately find him lacking for his altruistic weaknesses. The slow burning Toshirō Mifune conveys all the pride and decency of this complicated character with complete conviction. His is counterbalanced by the ice-cold Tatsuya Nakadai as Detective Tokura, the cool cop trying not to get emotionally involved in the case.

While Mifune and Nakadai are probably the most celebrated Japanese actors of any generation, High’s lesser known supporting players are also quite strong. As Tokura’s Bos’n, the big bald Kenjiro Ishiyama totally looks and acts like a cop, while on the other side of the cat-and-mouse game, Tsutomu Yamazaki brings the right touch of creepiness to the mysterious kidnapper, without overdoing it.

High captures the right grittily realistic look and feel of on-the-ground police work. Kurosawa, the master, clearly had a deep command of the genre, shrewdly creating tension through the effective use of Gondo’s Frank Lloyd Wright inspired glass house sitting high atop a high overlooking the city’s slums. He memorably caps High with a strange coda that affords viewers a shrouded glimpse into the criminal’s psyche, warped as it is by class envy and resentment.

Kurosawa’s international reputation might have been made with classics like Rashomon, but he could also craft an intriguing film noir. Had High been the work of another filmmaker, it might be considered their masterwork, but for Kurosawa, it is just another really good movie. Indeed, it is an excellent film, definitely worth seeing when it screens during the Kurosawa Centennial series at Film Forum on January 22nd.

Kurosawa Centennial: The Idiot

There must be a mysterious film vault somewhere that holds the entire four and a half hour director’s cut of Akira Kurosawa’s troubled adaptation of the classic Dostoyevsky novel, perhaps next to the missing reel of Welles’s Magnificent Ambersons. Kurosawa’s The Idiot was only publically screened once in its entirety before the studio had it cut substantially. While Kurosawa’s original version has yet to be located (though not a lack of looking on the director’s part), in its surviving 166 minute form, it still represents a not inconsequential investment of time and a good value for your ticket buying dollar when it screens during Film Forum’s ambitious twenty-eight film celebration of the Kurosawa Centennial.

It is not right when people call the epileptic Kinji Kameda an idiot, but they do it all the time. An accused WWII war criminal, Kameda was pardoned while facing his firing squad. During that moment, he experienced a combination of shellshock and a transcendental epiphany that have made him meek by all outward appearances, but wise to those who bother to delve deeper. Something about him also touches the brash Denkichi Akama with whom he is travelling to snowy, appropriately Russian-looking Hokkaido after his release from a military asylum.

Kameda hopes to find some sort of home with his only surviving family, a shady uncle who has been taking advantage of him financially. Akama intends to use his recent inheritance to buy the love of Taeko Nasu, an infamous kept woman. When Akama points out her photo in the window of a photography store, Kameda is struck by her eyes, recognizing a kinship of pain within them. Soon two unlikely love triangles overlap, as Kameda and Akama compete to deliver Nasu the fate they each believe she deserves, even while Kameda’s heart is divided between the notorious Nasu and the innocent but unforgiving Ayako.

With nearly two hours whittled out, The Idiot understandably has some rough patches, particularly at the beginning and the end. There is a considerable amount of telling rather showing as a result. However, when it gets going, it temporarily matches some of Kurosawa’s finest work, as when Kameda falls in love (of some kind) with Nasu’s picture. It brings to mind Preminger’s classic Laura, yet Kurosawa stages the scene with more subtly and ambiguity. Frankly, The Idiot probably peaks about a third of the way through with Nasu’s first dramatic appearance in the film. Though she is supposed to accept a marriage arranged by Kameda’s uncle on behalf of her wealthy keeper, she turns the tables, humiliating her humiliators. It is a scene of juicy melodrama that brings to mind the work of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis (particularly her famous line: “Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”)

Though Toshirō Mifune is perfectly cast as the animalistic Akama, The Idiot is probably Kurosawa’s only film with the actor not dominated by his intense screen presence. Instead it is Masayuki Mori’s disconcertingly child-like innocence as Kameda that defines the film. Yet, The Idiot’s strongest characters are its women, particularly the deeply wounded Nasu, played with elegant grace by Setsuko Hara, best known as Yasujiro Ozu’s frequent muse.

It is unfair to pass a final judgment on The Idiot since we cannot screen it as Kurosawa intended. Still, two and three-quarter hours are at least a good taste of Kurosawa’s take on Dostoyevsky. Even if somewhat inconsistent, it is far more entertaining than most new films released during an average year. The Idiot screens Sunday (1/17) as the Kurosawa celebration continues at Film Forum.

Kurosawa Centennial: Throne of Blood

Reportedly, it was the favorite film of T.S. Eliot and it has one of the coolest death scenes in cinema history. As if that were not enough, Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood is also considered one of the best film treatments of the Scottish Play, sans the Shakespearean language. Recast during the “Warring States” period of Japanese history, Throne (a.k.a. Spider Web Castle, trailer here) ranks in the top tier of Kurosawa’s considerable body of work, making it an essential selection of Film Forum’s enthusiastically recommended celebration of the great director’s centennial (1910-2010).

Washizu (Macbeth) and Miki (Banquo) have just vanquished the enemies of Lord Tzuzuki (King Duncan). Expected at Spider Web Castle for a reception in their honor, the childhood friends find themselves lost in the forest. Wandering in circles, they stumble upon an evil spirit who makes several predictions. Not only does it foresee short-term promotions for both men, it prophesizes Washizu will become king, but he will be succeeded by Miki’s son.

If you don’t know the story from there, shame on you, but watching Throne would make for a heck of a crib note. Still, keep in mind Kurosawa and his four credited screenwriters cut one of Macbeth’s major antagonists, altering the climax as a result. (The upshot for Washizu/Macbeth is the same though.) Rewriting the Bard might sound presumptuous, but since in this case it produced that truly epic death sequence, Kurosawa and his team pulled it off with style.

Frequent Kurosawa collaborator Toshirō Mifune has the perfect larger-than-life swagger for Washizu, but also makes him a touch more sympathetic than other screen portrayals of Macbeth. Conversely, Isuzu Yamada’s ghastly pale Asaji, the Lady Macbeth figure, is particularly creepy, almost looking like she would be at home in a j-horror film. Takashi Shimura, another Kurosawa regular, is also on hand as Noriyashu, one of Washizu’s rivals who does not have a clear parallel in Shakespeare’s play.

Perhaps more than any other Macbeth on film, Kurosawa brings a real sense of place to Throne. Spider Web Forest is quite the foreboding environment, while the Castle is appropriately grand but austere. He clearly had a strong affinity for the material producing a masterwork that borders on legitimate masterpiece status. An essential Kurosawa film, Throne screens at Film Forum on Friday (1/15).

Kurosawa Centennial: Stray Dog

Despite rumors to the contrary, no animals were hurt during the filming of Akira Kurosawa’s first film noir. Yet like the controversial image of the rabid dog that opens the film, such overheated rhetoric was strangely appropriate for Stray Dog, the great filmmaker’s hardboiled tale of madness and obsession unfolding in the sweltering summer heat of post-war Tokyo. While Kurosawa is universally acclaimed for his historical epics, he also produced a number of masterful crime dramas, which makes Stray a somewhat unexpected but fitting kick-off to Film Forum’s New Year’s present to film lovers, a twenty-eight film retrospective celebrating Akira Kurosawa’s centennial (1910-2010).

It is blindingly hot and hazy in Tokyo. The black market is buzzing and the police feel like they are fighting a losing battle. Weakened by heat and fatigue, a rookie homicide detective has his colt revolver pick-pocketed on a crowded bus. To Murakami’s unrelenting shame, his own weapon will figure prominently in a frenzied crime spree, despite his dogged efforts to apprehend the rabid dog in question.

Stray features many of the familiar elements of American film noir, including flashbacks, voiceover narration, and stylized black-and-white cinematography. However, it also addresses very Japanese themes of honor and disgrace as well as incorporating distinct elements of post-war life in Japan. Ration cards are still very much a fact of life and play an important role in Kurosawa’s story. For authenticity several notable scenes were also filmed by Kurosawa’s assistant Ishiro Honda (who would later direct a little film called Godzilla) in genuine black markets, at some measure of personal risk.

As Murakami pursues his piece, a gritty morality play unfolds. Truly, nobody is harder on the rookie than himself. His inspector sagely warns him a man is either made or broken by bad his luck. The crafty veteran detective Sato logically argues if the crimes had not been committed by his Colt, they would have been done with a Browning. Unfortunately, it is hard to reason with Murakami thanks to the oppressive heat and his acute sense of responsibility.

Kurosawa had long and fruitful working relationship with lead actors Toshirō Mifune and Takashi Shimura that produced some remarkable work, most definitely including Stray. It is hard to think of actor who could ever match Mifune’s brooding intensity and he brought it in spades as Murakami. Likewise, Shimura flawlessly conveys Sato’s deceptively laidback persona, perfectly counterbalancing the anguished Murakami.

Richer and deeper than a mere crime noir, Stray is arguably in the top tier of Kurosawa’s films (which is high praise indeed, given the caliber of his filmography). As one of Kurosawa’s most visually dynamic films, it is great to have it playing on the big screen in a new 35m print. It starts a special nine day run this Wednesday (1/6), as Film Forum launches their can’t-miss celebration of one hundred years of Kurosawa. Look for more coverage of the Kurosawa centennial throughout the month. Happy New Year.