Ranking Kurosawa's Films

Unemployed ninjas protecting helpless peasants and a movie in which Toshiro Mifune is the 2nd best actor, normally I am with you all the way Matt but not on this.

I watched Kagemusha for the first time since 1995, a first draft for what he'd realized far better in Ran: an idea of splendor, a sense that power is ceremonial and thus ephemeral.

*fingers moustache*

doesn't get any better than Ikiru and High and Low imo

I realized I prefer his urban dramas and Shakespeare adaptations to the samurai stuff.

I love the samurai films but I can't argue with Red Beard as his best.

The Bad Sleep Well is also great, though having Mifune off-screen for the ending creates a strangely muted effect.

Among his lesser films, I'm a big fan of The Idiot, which is too long, too slow, and (in its second part) too incoherent, but is still the most effective film adaptation of Dostoevsky.

I've been watching Kurosawa films in chronological order, so far have seen Sanshiro Sugata, Sanshiro Sugata Part Two, The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail, No Regrets for Our Youth, One Wonderful Sunday, and Stray Dog.

Setsuko Hara drew me into No Regrets for Our Youth the way she has in all of her films with Ozu. The other films I’ve enjoyed but haven’t loved.

The films made during the war were quite propagandistic and those made slightly after were subject to American censorship. They get better. I think Stray Dog, or the one just before that, Drunken Angel, are where he starts to get good (also when he starts working with Mifune and Shimura together)

> Rashomon, if anything, is a timeless story. Wasn't there even an American remake a couple of years ago?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 08:05 (sixteen years ago)

The Outrage (1964), transplants everything to a western setting (a railway station, not a temple...), has Paul Newman in the Mifune role and William Shatner as the preacher. It's well worth a watch.

xp Sanshiro Sugata 2 is pretty bad, but it's interesting as the first movie to show karate ... the contrast between the wild karate villains and the upright judoka reflects contemporary prejudice toward Okinawans and nationalist suspicions about karate being derived from Chinese martial arts.

Imagine my surprise when Vincent Van Gogh opens his mouth in Dreams.

just watched Rashomon, I liked that the final version of the story, told by the woodcutter who is confirmed to be a liar and a thief, is both the most pitiful and humiliating and also the most believable

I tried to absorb Stray Dog, but it was refracted out

still haven't watched Drunken Angel, I see that it's on the Criterion Channel

Throne of Blood was one of the films that changed the way I watch movies. It was also super influential for my personal music creation.

I thought The Idiot was beautiful, more emotionally powerful than any of the other films of his I’ve seen so far. I really liked the setting of eternal winter and the portrayal of extreme empathy

finally saw Drunken Angel on the Criterion Channel, it was also pretty great

I need to see more of his less canonical titles. I just watched Rashomon again yesterday; what a beautiful, bottomlessly fascinating movie.

not sure exactly why but I didn't love Ikiru

will come back to it

Seven Samurai is really long but has a lot of memorable characters, and Toshiro Mifune’s comic wild man performance is a large part of what keeps the film interesting

> Toshiro Mifune’s comic wild man performance is a large part of what keeps the film interesting

that's probably the opposite of what i think.

I Live in Fear wasn't all that compelling

I did like the final scene in the asylum stairway with Nakajima's daughter and Dr. Harada passing each other, it seemed very potent

I remember liking that one and some knowledgeable friend of mine describing the lead perform as “tightly coiled,” although it’s been awhile.

Throne of Blood did have some of the best ever Kurosawa scenes at its end, but the most indelible scene for me was near the beginning, the prophesying spirit in the forest with the weaving spool.

I know it’s an adaptation of Shakespeare, but it also seems very connected to Seven Samurai in portraying the tension between collectivism and individualism

seeing The Lower Depths (1957, based on a Gorky play) made me wonder if it was an influence for Kore-eda’s Shoplifters

there are some really great scenes in The Hidden Fortress - the prisoner uprising, the spear fight, the bonfire especially

I didn’t realize it was an influence on Lucas for Star Wars, including the telling of the story from the point of view of the lowliest characters

The Bad Sleep Well is relentless and grim, even for Kurosawa

it doesn’t seem at all interested in supplying a satisfying ending, which I like about it

Yojimbo is another really good samurai film, and is different from his previous ones with its frontier town Western quality

it's based on the classic hammett book Red Harvest and it really shows its source material

Watched Stray Dog last week and I loved loved LOVED it - it's so good simply in basic film-making terms (blocking, editing, show don't tell), and the gritty noir vibe and denouement felt timeless. But I'm a Mifune tragic so I guess I was going to like it.

I need to see it again! I've been immersed in Kurosawa but he made so many films that it's really hard to absorb them all

it's hard to pick a favorite Mifune performance, but I think he was really good in Yojimbo

Throne of Blood for me

saw Red Beard for the first time and thought it was fantastic, such a humane story and memorable Toshirô Mifune role

it has been really interesting to watch Kurosawa’s films in order and see the evolution of Mifune’s performances

Dodes’ka-den is not the most interesting of Kurosawa’s films narratively, but its style is fascinating. It feels like a real break from his previous work

it was his first color film, with brightly painted surfaces reminiscent of Red Desert. Also it had his first use of zoom lenses and cycloramas

the stylization of it kind of overwhelmed his previous social realism

Dersu Uzala is another really great Kurosawa film.

Gary Arnold in the WP in 1978 had a very dismissive review of it as “a pastoral epic about the inherent superiority of a man who lives alone and in harmony with nature” which “reflects a decline in dramatic power and a doting, futile taste in sentimental hero-worship.”

I don’t think that describes it at all. The kindness of it reminds me of Red Beard, and it has a lot to say about our current disrespect for other people and our disregard for the environment.

Takashi Shimura's role as the lead samurai in SEVEN SAMURAI is a beautiful work of art

huh, who knew we even had a separate film board. well, at least i don't have to worry about anyone responding to my post

Ha, it’s cursed, like one of those storefront locations that Jerry Seinfeld once referred to as “a black hole of retail.”