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The most rudimentary research into the creative origins of the groundbreaking 1977 sci-fi flick "Star Wars" will reveal to the reader that creator George Lucas was inspired by "Flash Gordon" serials from the 1930s, as well as Akira Kurosawa's 1958 epic "The Hidden Fortress." Kurosawa's film famously opened with two clownish characters (Kamatari Fujiwara and Minoru Chiaki) who aimed to earn their fortune as samurai. After several misadventures, the peasants unwittingly become embroiled in a much larger plot about a missing princess (Misa Uehara), a war, and a brave protective warrior (Toshiro Mifune). "Star Wars" borrowed that film's structure, introducing audiences to its sci-fi action through the eyes (lenses?) of the robotic characters C-3Po (Anthony Daniels) and the non-humanoid R2-D2. 

C-3Po was a prissy, fastidious droid who seemed impatient with the foibles of the organic beings he lived with, and was frequently panicked and afraid. The only time...

By the end of the 1940s, director Akira Kurosawa had established himself as a dependable worker for several movie studios, including Daei, who had already produced “The Quiet Duel” in 1949 and who would approach him with the proposal of adapting “In a Grove”, a short story by writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa. At the end of the same year, and despite a fire in the studio, Kurosawa and his team managed to finish “Rashomon”, which would be released in Japan to moderate success, but ultimately to some international attention, such as Giuliana Stramigioli, the president of Venice Film Festival. The rest, as they say, is history, with “Rashomon” becoming a major success for its creator and the Japanese film industry as a whole, whose reputation, even today, relies to some extent on Kurosawa’s works. Despite its role for Japanese culture, “Rashomon” regularly attracts many cinephiles and scholars for its approach to storytelling,...

The ruined gate of Rashōmon in Kyoto, which acts as the central setting in Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story "Rashōmon," had an unsavory reputation during the 12th century. A frequent hideout for thieves and hooligans, the Rashōmon gate came to be known as a symbol of moral degradation, which Akutagawa incorporated in his short to great effect. When filmmaker Akira Kurosawa wove together aspects of two Akutagawa shorts — "Rashōmon" and "In A Grove" — in his 1950 Jidaigeki drama "Rashomon," he transformed the ruined gate into a site of subjective retelling, a sort of moral crossroads where despair and hope coexist. Kurosawa opens "Rashomon" with three men seeking shelter from torrential rain under the ruined gate, which leads to the recounting of a murder mystery with no definite ending. Four eyewitnesses recall a singular incident in the forest in wildly different ways, making the truth impossible to arrive at. What does this all mean?...

After the huge commercial success of its predecessor, it was only a matter of months for production company Toho to come up with a follow-up to Ishiro Honda’s original “Godzilla”. However, with Honda working on several other features at the time, directing duties were handed over to Motoyoshi Oda, who had worked with Honda on other features as his assistant and who also had experience working with movies relying on special effects, as his 1954 science-fiction venture “The Invisible Avenger” had proven. With the second feature possibly signaling the beginning of a franchise, Oda and his team went on to develop the story, but also the special effects in order to show Godzilla more often on screen, as well as have him fight against another monster, something which would become even more important in the years to come, as the infamous kaiju would be challenged by several other creatures like him.

By the end of the 1940s, director Akira Kurosawa had established himself as a dependable worker for several movie studios, including Daei, who had already produced “The Quiet Duel” in 1949 and who would approach him with the proposal of adapting “In a Grove”, a short story by writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa. At the end of the same year, and despite a fire in the studio, Kurosawa and his team managed to finish “Rashomon”, which would be released in Japan to moderate success, but ultimately to some international attention, such as Giuliana Stramigioli, the president of Venice Film Festival. The rest, as they say, is history, with “Rashomon” becoming a major success for its creator and the Japanese film industry as a whole, whose reputation, even today, relies to some extent on Kurosawa’s works. Despite its role for Japanese culture, “Rashomon” regularly attracts many cinephiles and scholars for its approach to storytelling,...

“I am a person rarely impressed by actors… but in the case of Mifune I was completely overwhelmed. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression. Toshirō Mifune needed only three feet,” said Akira Kurosawa.

One of the greatest talents in cinema history, Toshirō Mifune left behind a staggering body of work amassing over 150 starring roles. Born on April 1, 1920, a retrospective was planned for 2020 timed to his centennial and now, after a delay due to the pandemic, it will kick off next week at NYC’s Film Forum. Featuring 35mm rarities and rediscoveries imported from the libraries of The Japan Foundation and The National Film Archive of Japan, the series will run for a whopping four weeks, from February 11 through March 10, and feature 33 films.

Ahead of the retrospective, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the trailer, edited by John Zhao, highlighting what is...

After his dramatic feature “The Lower Depths”, Japanese auteur Akira Kuroswa returned to the jidai geki genre with his 1958 effort “The Hidden Fortress”. While the movie would continue his exploration of the human condition, in particular, its expression during times of war, this work also marks the first time Kurosawa would use the widescreen-format, a technology which would continue to influence his future works. Besides the often quoted “Rashomon” or “Seven Samurai”, to name just two examples, “The Hidden Fortress” may just be one of the director’s most influential features as it inspired the likes of George Lucas and his Star Wars-movies.

As mentioned before, the story is set during a time of war, after a significant battle has caused the near defeat of House Akizuki and its leaders. After their escape from imprisonment, two farmers and petty thieves names Tahei (Minoru Chiaki) and Matashichi...

Akira Kurosawa goes full tilt humanist with this emotionally wrenching, vastly insightful look at human nature. A faceless bureaucrat, alone and empty, is diagnosed with stomach cancer. He rebels and breaks down, but then finds a way to give meaning to his life even as he's losing it. Kurosawa one-ups the Italian Neorealists by seeing hope and value even in the oblivion of the human condition. Ikiru Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 221 1952 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 143 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / To Live / Street Date November 24, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Takashi Shimura, Shinichi Himori, Haruo Tanaka, Minoru Chiaki, Miki Odagiri, Bokuzen Hidari Cinematography Asakazu Nakai Production Designer So Matsuyama Original Music Fumio Hayasaka Written by Shinobu Hashimoto, Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Oguni Produced by Sojiro Motoki Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Criterion has made slow but steady progress upgrading its impressive Akira Kurosawa library from DVD to Blu-ray. The newest...

(Region B)   Akira Kurosawa's unquestioned top rank classic remains a fascinating study of truth and justice. A forest encounter left a man murdered and his wife raped. Or did something entirely different happen? The witnesses Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura and Machiko Kyo give radically differing testimony. This UK edition offers a full commentary by Japanese film expert Stuart Galbraith IV. Rashômon Region B UK Blu-ray BFI 1950 / B&W / 1.33:1 / 88 min. / Street Date September 21, 2015 / Available at Amazon UK / £15.99 Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki, Kichijiro Ueda, Fumiko Honma. Cinematography Kazuo Miyagawa Art Direction So Matsuyama Film Editor Akira Kurosawa Original Music Fumio Hayasaka Written by Shinobu Hashimoto, Akira Kurosawa from stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa Produced by Minoru Jingo, Masaichi Nagata Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

This reviewer doesn't review most foreign discs, but with major studios licensing out their libraries, there are...

**Massive spoilers for every Godzilla movie, with the exception of the 2014 reboot, and Mothra follow**

August 6th and 9th, 1945 forever changed the course of history. When the first nuclear bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, World War II ended, but a new fear was born that dominated the thoughts of all men, women, and children for decades to come. The Cold War, atomic bomb testing, a cartoon turtle telling children to “duck and cover”, and this new technology that had the actual potential to literally end the world changed the perception of what was scary. Art reflects life, so cinema began to capitalize on these fears. Gone were the days of creepy castles, cobwebs, bats, vampires, werewolves, and the other iconic images that ruled genre cinema in film’s earliest decades. Science fiction was larger than ever and giant ants, giant octopi, terror from beyond the stars, and...

The Hidden Fortress

Written by Ryûzô Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Akira Kurosawa

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Japan, 1958

By the time Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress was released in 1958, it was more or less settled that the Japanese filmmaker — the only Japanese filmmaker most average moviegoers had heard of at that point — was among the world’s best. This was after Rashomon, after Ikiru, and after The Seven Samurai. Kurosawa’s talent was beyond question, and his global cinematic prominence was growing. However, his last three films, while positively received by critics, did not do so well with audiences. He needed something that would combine quality with commercial success. “A truly good movie is really enjoyable, too,” he once said. “There’s nothing complicated about it.” He would meet this condition with The Hidden Fortress, out now on a new Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD combo. While not containing the narrative innovation,...

Criterion re-releases Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 adventure The Hidden Fortress for a ravishing blu-ray update this month, following hot on the heels of a similar refurbishing for Throne of Blood (1957). Long hailed as a “primary” influence on George Lucas’ Star Wars, there are indeed notable structural similarities, but they’re quite superficial, as those attracted to the title based on this tidbit alone should take note. An entertaining adventure comedy that utilized widescreen technology to breathtaking effect (and represents Kurosawa’s first time using Toho Scope), it’s an impressively structured endeavor on its own, and was actually the first substantial hit for Kurosawa since 1954’s Seven Samurai.

At its core a re-dressed version of The Prince and the Pauper, two peasants in war torn feudal Japan, Tahei (Minoru Chiaki) and Matakishi (Kamatari Fujiwara) escape as prisoners of war and attempt to make their way back home to their own province.