I LIVE IN FEAR (1955) In March 1954, the Japanese fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon No. 5) was irradiated by fallout from American H-bomb tests on Bikini Atoll. The whole crew developed radiation sickness, radioactive rains fell on Japan, and the Pacific tuna harvest was contaminated reigniting Japanese fears of atomic devastation in […]
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IKIRU (1952) The Idiot didn’t do well, but after the international success of Rashomon it didn’t matter. Kurosawa had an unprecedented amount of clout for a Japanese director. However, he wasn’t quite satisfied that he had made his name with a period piece and explicitly said in his acceptance of the Venice Film Festival Prize
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SCANDAL (1950) By 1950, the post-war occupation of Japan was running its course, and restrictions and censorship by the occupying authorities slackened. That was a good thing for the people of Japan as they moved towards a modern democracy. However, the rise of yellow journalism and the scandal sheet were not necessarily good things. Kurosawa
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STRAY DOG (1949) Kurosawa had the cinematic chops to create compelling movies out of scenarios that weren’t on their surface cinematic or were just flat out abstract. The subjectivity of truth. Meeting a production quota. Battles with disease. How one deals with the difficult realities of post-war Japan. How one deals with one’s own mortality.
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THE QUIET DUEL (1949) A strike had stopped production at Toho Studios prior to filming The Quiet Duel and Kurosawa was desperate to get back to work as soon as possible once it ended. So, Kurosawa turned to a play penned by Kazuo Kikuta dealing with a doctor dealing with a real life issue in
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DRUNKEN ANGEL (1948) It’s clear that the condition of post-war Japan was on Kurosawa’s mind during the years immediately following World War II. He didn’t shy away from it in One Wonderful Sunday, but that film featured a respectable working class couple. In Drunken Angel, Kurosawa almost literally dives into the cesspool of corruption and
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