DERSU UZALA (1975) After the commercial failure of Dodes’ka-den, his attempted suicide, and the difficulty of finding funding in a Japanese film industry that was going through major transitions, Kurosawa’s career looked over in the early 1970s. However, larger forces were at work; the Soviets were looking to improve relations with the Japanese in the […]
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DODES’KA-DEN (1970) Akira Kurosawa hadn’t had a flop in over a decade when he made Dodes’ka-den, yet he was in need of a comeback. His production company had gone belly up in the fallout from Tora! Tora! Tora! and he hadn’t made a film in half a decade, after making a film every year in
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RED BEARD (1965) Although they likely didn’t know it at the time, Red Beard marks the end of an era. It’s the end of Kurosawa’s most productive period where he directed 23 movies in 22 years; he would end up directing only seven films over the last 28 years of his career. It’s Kurosawa’s last
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HIGH AND LOW (1963) Salvatore Albert Lombino, aka Evan Hunter, inspired by Jack Webb, wrote around fifty 87th Precinct police procedural novels under the pen name Ed McBain. The 87th Precinct novels were the preeminent police procedural novels for close to half a century. Akira Kurosawa was a fan. A combination of fandom and growing
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SANJURO (1962) Kurosawa had wanted to make a film based on Shuguro Yamamoto’s story “Peaceful Days” before he made Yojimbo. With the massive success of Yojimbo, the screenplay adaptation of “Peaceful Days” was reworked to be Sanjuro, the continuing adventures of Toshiro Mifune’s wandering ronin. Kurosawa, ultimately took over the job of directing the film,
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YOJIMBO (1961) Kurosawa had wanted to do a film like Yojimbo for a long time. A story not of good vs. evil, but of evil vs. evil with a hero stepping in and wiping out both sides. He finally settled on a story clearly inspired by Dashiell Hammet’s Red Harvest and The Glass Key. Since
Kurosawa, In Order #20 – Yojimbo Read More »