Akira Kurosawa

An Emperor and a Master

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Akira Kurosawa is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors in cinema history. It is a testimony to his genius that he was able to break the language barrier and was able to entertain and communicate with millions of cinema lovers all over the world including yours truly. Born in 1910 he made around 30 movies in a career spanning five decades from Sugata Sanshiro (1943) to Madadayo (1993) before he passed away in 1998.

Kurosawa’s father was the director of a junior high school operated by the Japanese military. He was a man who had a western outlook and inculcated in his children the same outlook. He used to take Kurosawa out to see western movies and may have influenced his outlook to movies from an early age itself.

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In 1936 Kurosawa began his career in movies as an apprentice of Kajiro Yamamoto. He made his first movie at the age of 33. His earlier movies were mainly nationalistic and propaganda movies made under the watchful eyes of the government during the world war days. It was not until he directed the ‘Drunken Angel’ in 1948 that he came into his own. Kurosawa himself has said that he discovered himself with this movie. Incidentally this was also the movie which saw the master working with Toshiro Mifune for the first time; in my opinion one of the greatest actor-director collaborations of all time.

From then on through the 50s and 60s Akira Kurosawa achieved the zenith of his craftsmanship. Masterpieces came one after another and with such amazing regularity that he became the undisputed master of Asian cinema. Three of his most acclaimed movies; Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954) all came during this period. This was followed by adaptations like Thorne of blood (from Macbeth), Lower Depth (from Maxim Gorky’s play of the same name) and The Bad Sleep Well (from Hamlet). He also made such great entertainers like Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962). This was followed by movies which were more or lees a social commentary like High and Low (1963) and Red Beard (1965).

After Red Beard Kurosawa acquired a reputation of being dictatorial in his approach and was called an Emperor by some. He subsequently found it difficult to get work and funding for his pictures. This is reflected by the sad fact that he made just 7 movies in the next 2 decades after Red Beard. Of these his Dodesukaden (1970) was such a failure that he even tried to commit suicide. He had to make the Russian Dersu Uzala (1975) in the meanwhile, his only non-japanese movie, in a bid to do some work. It was only through the help of his famous admirers George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola that he was able find the necessary funding for Kagemusha (1980). But even there he was asked to make cuts of about 20 minutes to the movie. In 1985 Kurosawa made Ran (adapted from King Lear) which is widely considered by some as his last masterpiece. He made three more movies before his death; Dreams (1990), Rhapsody in August (1991), Madadayo(1993) though they are all considered to be the master’s lesser works.

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Kurosawa was a master of the narrative. When you see some of his movies the he made at his peak you can see the various styles of narratives that he has used. In Ikiru he tells the story from different timelines. He shifts between the past, the present and the future with such effortless ease that it never confuses the audience. In High and Low the movie is clearly divided into two acts with nothing but a train sequence connecting both parts of the story. But the best of them all is Rashomon. He tells the story from the perspective of four different people giving the audience the desired effect of guessing which the accurate narration of events is.

Kurosawa also showcased many themes and genres that are used in movies even today. He used the classic team building and practice routines in Seven Samurai. His Yojimbo must be one of the greatest Westerns ever although it is set in 16th century Japan. It was later remade as A Fistful of Dollars in Hollywood. The Hidden Fortress is a classic action/adventure movie which was the inspiration for George Lucas’s Star Wars.

He also tried to raise questions about the moral and emotional complexities of man. Rashomon showed that man’s perspective is clouded by his own ego. Red Beard showed the sufferings of the poor and their struggle for survival. High and Low was a dark reminder of the dangers of the inequalities in society. Ran showcased the destructive nature of man’s ambitions. Kagemusha showed the effects of image and the blind belief in it. And Ikiru showcased the shortness of life and the importance of living it fully and meaningfully.

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Kurosawa is a master of the technique of film making too. In Throne of Blood, in the final scene in which Mifune is shot by arrows, Kurosawa used real arrows shot by expert archers from a short range, landing within centimetres of Mifune's body. He was the first to use the telephoto lens to give a flat view of the shot. His sometimes used elaborate and grand shots to give the audience breathtaking visuals in the background. Several of his shots in Ran were almost painterly. He used various natural elements to telling effects like the rain in Rashamon and Seven Samurai, the snow in Ikiru, the wind in Yojimbo and the oppressive heat in High and Low.

He was a perfectionist who spent enormous amounts of time and effort to achieve the desired visual effects. Some of his techniques were innovative and expensive, sometimes even time consuming. He dyed the raid water black with ink to get the desired effect of heavy rain in Rashomon. He built an entire castle set in Mt. Fuji which was later destroyed in the climax. He demanded that the entire cast live in the sets of Red Beard to give it the proper lived in feel. He would give his actors their costumes 2 weeks in advance so that they would look properly worn out. He would wait for weeks to get the right cloud formation. Production for Red Beard took 2 years to complete which ultimately fractured his relationship with Toshiro Mifune.

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Despite all this there is no denying his genius. And like most other geniuses people forgets their eccentricities because their work more than makes up for it. His work will be remembered for generations to come. His works have influenced many. Direct influences can be found in The Magnificent Seven, A fistful of Dollars, Star Wars, Outrage, even in India’s biggest hit of all time Sholay and many more. Kurosawa was a master of his craft and will be remembered as one of the true Emperors of cinema.

Reviews of Akira Kurosawa's Major works

Rashomon (1950)	Ikiru (1952)	Seven Samurai (1954)
Hidden Fortress (1958)	Yojimbo (1961)	High And Low (1963)
Red Beard (1965)	Kagemusha (1980)	Ran (1985)
Rhapsody In August (1991)

The Hidden Fortress

A Simple Entertainer by Akira Kurosawa

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Akira Kurosawa’s movies always carried some meaning in them. Most of the times he was using his movies as a medium to convey some meaningful message. This is why if you look down the list of movies that he had made ‘Hidden Fortress’ is sure to stand out. This is because for once Kurosawa wanted to have fun with it all and wanted everyone who watched it to have fun too. So you get ‘The Hidden Fortress’ (The Japanese title is Kakushi toride no san akunin meaning the three villains of the hidden fortress) which is an action/adventure/comedy.

The story is narrated almost entirely from the point of view of two peasants Tahei and Matakishi. They had set out to join a three way war between rival clans: Akizuki, Hayakawa and Yamana. But unfortunately they reached the war too late and to top their misery they are mistaken to be members of the defeated Akizuki by the victorious Yamana and are made to dig graves all day for the dead. They somehow manage to escape from there and that is when we meet them.

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During their travels they discover that a reward has been set for the head of the Akizuki Princess Yuki. They also discover by chance some gold hidden within firewood which they understand to be the Royal Property of Akizuki. During their efforts to discover more gold they meet a man who acts as a bully. They tell him that they are trying to get to Hayakawa by passing right through Yamana as they believe that it would be easier to cross the borders of Akizuki-Yamana and Yamana-Hayakawa than crossing the borders of Akizuki-Hayakawa.

The bully is impressed with this idea and reveals himself to be General Rokurota Makabe, a great samurai general of Akizuki. The peasants however do not believe him. They also encounter a beautiful 16 year old girl whom the General claims as his woman and also informs them that she is mute. In reality she is Princess Yuki and the General had instructed her not to speak because her imperious manner of speech would give her away.

The general gets the peasants to work for him and carry the load of firewood and gold by inciting their greed. He promises them an equal share of the gold and that’s what drives them to go through the arduous journey ahead. His real intention is to rebuild the Akizuki clan using the gold as seed money. Thus the small group sets off on their journey through enemy lines and the rest of the movie is about their adventures during the same.

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Unlike in his earlier movies Kurosawa does not spend too much time in developing the characters. He therefore tells the movie from the point of view of the two peasants. This frees him from the necessity of developing the characters and just concentrating on their adventures. There is no great character shift either. The General is all heroic, the princess is all regal and brash, and the peasants are bumbling fools right through to the very end. Maybe one can argue that the peasants become better friends and have gotten a hold on their greed by the end of the movie. But even that is not emphasized because we see that these two guys were always good friends and the reward that they get in the end is too insignificant to be fighting over.

The movie also has elements of ‘The prince and the Pauper’. The princess, by donning the disguise of a commoner is able to see the life of normal people in a better light. In the princess’s own words, “I was able to see the beauty and the ugliness of man”. She is also able to realize the importance of kindness to others. The slave girl that she rescues later protects her and is even ready to sacrifice herself for her. She is even able to change the mind of General Hyoe Tadokoro, whose life General Makabe had spared after a duel in which Makabe had defeated Tadokoro. Tadokoro later on helps them escape and even joins their ranks.

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Toshiro Mifune in this movie is majestic. After Seven Samurai he now gets a chance to play an over the top character. The difference here is that he is the hero who is all brave and valor instead of being the foolish, hooting farmer in Seven Samurai. His presence electrifies the screen and you just can’t take your eyes off him.

This is an out and out fun movie. George Lucas has said many times that his Star Wars was inspired by this movie. A direct reference can be found in the similarities of the characters of Tahei and Matakishi with R2D2 and C3P0. The movie has everything in it; action, adventure, comedy and drama. Even the way the group deals their troubles along the way has everything in it. They have to rely on their cunning, valor and sometimes even on plain dumb luck to get through. The cinematography of this movie is absolutely stunning for its era. Overall the master lets his hair down and wants us to do the same while watching this movie.

Reviews of Akira Kurosawa's Major works

Akira Kurosawa

Rashomon (1950)

Ikiru (1952)

Seven Samurai (1954)

Hidden Fortress (1958)

Yojimbo (1961)

High And Low (1963)

Red Beard (1965)

Kagemusha (1980)

Ran (1985)

Rhapsody In August (1991)

Yojimbo

A western from the east

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With Yojimbo Akira Kurosawa takes a classic western, transports it to 1860 Japan and transforms the gunslinger into a sword wielding Ronin (a master less samurai), taking the genre to unparalleled heights. At the same time he does not lose focus from the primary purpose of a movie; that is to tell a good story.

The movie starts off like any other western you might have seen. The dust blowing through what seems like a ghost town, the long road which seems to run right through the length of the road and the audience’s view of the lone stranger entering the town all reminds you of a western. The only difference is that instead of cowboy attire the protagonist wears a kimono.

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The protagonist’s real name is never known to us. He takes the name of the first plant he lays his eyes on in the town. He says his surname is Sanjuro which means thirty. What hits you in this movie though is its dark humor and violence. During the opening sequence itself we see a dog running across Sanjuro with a human hand, while he is just about to enter the town. This shot gives both Sanjuro and us a foreboding sense of violence in this quiet town. And for all the humor in this movie, Kurosawa doesn’t shy away from showing the violence in very vivid detail for the time it was shot in.

Sanjuro enters the town and quickly learns that the town is controlled by two rival gangs. One of the gangs is led by the local silk merchant while the other is controlled by a sake merchant. The gangs are often involved in bloody fights against one another. And the town is in ruins. The only person making a good living here is the undertaker. The gangsters are aided by corrupt officials. One of them, a constable, actually convinces Sanjuro that the only way to survive in this town is to join forces with either of the two gangs. He even goes on to introduce Sanjuro to one of the gangs and collects a commission for his efforts too.

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But Sanjuro is a crafty fellow and is more intelligent than the towns people realize. He decides to play both sides and gets himself employed in the services of the both gangs. Things go on fine until the fighting escalates between the rival gangs. Even the undertaker is jobless now, because he says that when there are so many dead no one bothers with a coffin anymore. This line is typical of the dark humor that is prevalent throughout the movie.

Sanjuro’s contentment however doesn’t last long. He is not able to suppress his sympathy for a woman kidnapped by one of the gangs. The humaneness in his heart takes over when he decides to free the woman and reunite her with her child and husband. From then on Sanjuro’s faces a battle of survival and how he ultimately succeeds in wiping out both the gangs forms the rest of the movie.

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Toshiro Mifune is unparalleled as the lone Ronin. His swagger and his toothpick chewing in your face attitude give life to a character that could so easily have been played as an unconvincing superman. His subtlety and restrain is superb, and makes the character easy to identify with, even though it is in no way related to us. His silences and glances speak volumes and gives us an insight into what the character is going through at the moment. Although Clint Eastwood patented the same style in “Fistful of dollars” and other westerns, Mifune took the style to another level altogether.

Sanjuro is not your typical hero either. His motives, almost throughout the movie, are purely selfish. He is a hired sword or mercenary, willing to give his services to the highest bidder; whoever they might be. In the initial sequence he kills of a few gang members with utter nonchalance just to demonstrate his skills. Later on when he sets about to destroy the gang members, it is mostly out of revenge rather than out of a desire to save the town from their grasps. He was brutally assaulted and tortured by the gang members after he had freed the kidnapped woman, the only time he does a selfless act. Kurosawa’s hero is as grey as any you could find and still you end up rooting for him.

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That Kurosawa is a master of fight and action sequences was proven beyond doubt in “Seven Samurai”. In Yojimbo though he brings about a ballatic effect to the action sequences amidst its chaos. It leads to the climatic showdown between Sanjuro and the main gang member who has the advantage of a gun on that very long stretch of road right in the middle of the town. Kurasowa’s mastery of filmmaking is further illustrated when we see Sanjuro practicing with a knife by throwing it and pinning down a fluttering leaf. In reality that sequence is shown in reverse. The effect was created by first pinning down the leaf with a knife and then pulling it out with a string.

Yojimbo is not considered as great as some of the master’s other works. It doesn’t appeal to the intellect as Rashomon does nor does it enchant you like Seven Samurai. But still it is one of the best action movies I have seen. Kurosawa does not preach about the moral values and the wit in the movie compliments the violence and vice versa. Yojimbo is in fact more western than many other western movies from Hollywood. I believe it showed Hollywood how a western should be made.

Reviews of Akira Kurosawa's Major works

Akira Kurosawa

Rashomon (1950)

Ikiru (1952)

Seven Samurai (1954)

Hidden Fortress (1958)

Yojimbo (1961)

High And Low (1963)

Red Beard (1965)

Kagemusha (1980)

Ran (1985)

Rhapsody In August (1991)

Seven Samurai

Path breaking in its truest sense

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Seven Samurai is one of the greatest action movies of all time. The great Akira Kurosawa showed the world the infinite possibilities of highlighting emotional conflicts and its intensity in an action film. It also gives us a glimpse of the class divide prevalent in Japan at the time. It simultaneously tugs at your intellect while mesmerizing you with the visuals.

The story starts off with a village being attacked by a gang of bandits. The villagers were fed up with the constant threat of these bandits and want to do something about it. They consult the village elder and he counsels them to hire samurais. Not all are happy with this as they feel the samurais are expensive and would lust for their women. The elder however is firm and advises the villagers to find poor samurais (“Hungry Samurais” in his words) to help them in exchange for nothing more than food and board.

A few of the villagers set off to find these samurais at a nearby town but are initially fruitless in their efforts. But they are able to recruit on kind hearted Ronin called Kambei. He is then able to help them recruit a few more from the Ronins passing through the town. The recruited team includes: Kambei (The first ronin to be recruited and by default the leader of the group), Katsushiro (a young samurai very much impressed with Kambei and wants to be his disciple), Gorobei (Kambei’s deputy), Shichiroji (an old friend of Kambay), Kyuzo (a master swordsman), Heihachi Hayashida (a friendly Samurai whose humor sense helps the group to keep its spirits).

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The seventh member of the team is actually the most complex of them all; Kikuchiyo. He first comes off as an eccentric and maybe even insane. He does not seem to have the finesse of a Samurai. As the story progresses we realize why he is like that. Kikuchiyo is not a Samurai. He was born as the son of a farmer and he aspires to be Samurai in an effort to leave the life of a farmer behind him. He later on proves to be a vital link in the relationship between the farmers and the samurais. The villager do find their hungry samurais, but they are hungry not for food but for honor.

The seven thus formed goes to the village to help the villagers defend against the threat of the bandits. The fragile relationship between the samurais and the villagers, how they manage to overcome their differences for the common good, and their eventual triumph over the bandits forms the rest of the story.

Even though on the face of it Seven Samurai appears to be a simple story of good and evil, it is in fact more complex than it may seem to appear. There are various underlying complex themes that open a window into the societal conflicts and the lifestyle of the people at the time.

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The samurais for instance are shown as ordinary men who happen to possess great skill and resourcefulness. They are however alone in the world for all their skills. The plight of a Ronin (master less samurai) is even more pitiful as he does not have a livelihood until he is employed by another master and have to resort to menial jobs to earn his living. In the end only 3 of the samurais are left alive after the final battle. One of them even has to let go of his love for a young girl from the village because she chooses a life in the village to a life with him, prompting Kambei to say “The winners are those farmers. Not us”. He means that it’s the samurai’s masters who are always the winners. The samurais come out of each battle either alive or dead but never victorious.

The villager’s plight is even more depressing. They are a lot who live their life in constant worry. They worry if it rains as they are afraid if it might rain too much and spoil their crops. They worry if there is no rain as they begin to think that a drought might be imminent. In the movie this is best illustrated when fearing the bandits the villagers go to get the samurais. Then once the samurais arrive the villagers begin to worry if they would take a fancy for their women folks. So they hide them instead. But when Kikuchiyo raises a false alarm they again come running to the samurais along with the women pleading for protection.

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Kikuchiyo is the vital link in making the farmers more understandable to the Samurais. When the samurais are enraged upon discovering a cache of armaments (obviously taken by the farmers from defeated samurais) Kikuchiyo gives one of the movie’s most emotional moments. During his outbursts he says that the farmers are not saints but are conniving foxes. They claim to have nothing but they have everything. He says dig the floors or search the barns and you will find plenty of grains. If they smell a battle they hunt for the defeated. But he turns around asks who made them that way. He accuses the Samurais of oppressing the farmers, destroying their houses and villages, raping their women and plundering their harvest. And if they resist, the samurais would kill them. How else do they expect a farmer to behave?

The movie is also path breaking in some of the styles it has used to tell the story. As Michael Jeck says in his DVD commentary it is one of the first movies to have used the now common tool of recruiting and training sequences for telling a story about a team. This technique can be seen in some of the sports movies even today. Kambei’s introductory scene, where the hero is seen to perform an act of valor unrelated to the main plot of the movie, has also been repeated many times.

The genius of Kurosawa is reflected in the way he tells the story using lights and brilliant camera work. This is ably supported by some of the most brilliant editing that you will ever find in a movie. Long sequences are used so that we never lose out the vitality of the battle sequences. Some of the more intense sequences like the death sequences are shot in slow motion to make it more poignant. His sudden close ups enhances the emotions of the characters and leaves no one in doubt of what the character is going through. His deep shots of the various groups, be it the samurais or the villagers, showcases their unity as well as their division. His cast is also superb led by the vetran Takashi Shimura as Kambei and Toshiro Mifune as Kikuchiyo.

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Seven Samurai is one of those movies which attain perfection and has attained immortality among movie lovers. Even though many have used some of the tools that Kurosawa has used they have not been able to get the audience involved in an action movie as much as Kurosawa was able to. The remake of Seven Samurai, “The Magnificent Seven” was mediocre in comparison. Even our own “Sholay”, a brilliant movie on its own and inspired from The Seven Samurai, falls a few notches below the original. It was truly a path breaking piece of work in all it sense.

Reviews of Akira Kurosawa's Major works

Akira Kurosawa

Rashomon (1950)

Ikiru (1952)

Seven Samurai (1954)

Hidden Fortress (1958)

Yojimbo (1961)

High And Low (1963)

Red Beard (1965)

Kagemusha (1980)

Ran (1985)

Rhapsody In August (1991)