"Good swords are kept in their sheaths" - an Akira Kurosawa thread

[The Roofdog]

I've been mildly obsessed with Kurosawa recently. Have there been any other directors who managed to remain at the height of their powers for so long? He was 74 when he directed 'Ran'! Bergman and Hitchcock maybe.

The ideas behind his films are so simple yet so brilliant. A group of poor farmers hire seven samurai to protect their village from forty bandits. A kidnapper targeting a rich businessman snatches the wrong child. A homicide detective has his pistol stolen from him. A mysterious ronin manipulates rival crime lords into destroying each other. A common thief is hired to impersonate a dying warlord.

Watching these films in a big DVD binge you can see how the outlook of the man who made them was evolving, from the humanist films like 'Drunken Angel' and 'Ikiru' to the individualist Kurosawan heroes making a stand against society in 'Yojimbo' and 'The Bad Sleep Well', to the all-out carnage and madness of 'Kagemusha' and 'Ran', finally reining it in at the end of his life for the more sentimental coda of 'Dreams' and 'Madadayo'.

The thread is now open for people to tell me I should be watching Ozu or Mizoguchi films instead.

[BlodwynPig]

There were a host of great movies from around the 60s but i cannot remember their names - weren't Kurosawa. Dim lit alleyways, washer women and then some great fight sequences.

[monkfromhavana]

Does "You Only Live Twice" count?

[The Roofdog]

FRIENDS

[alcoholic messiah]

There was once a fantastic thread on TheForce.net in which a chap by the name of bad radio used screenshot comparisons and some convincing written analysis to illustrate the debt that the Star Wars films owe to Kurosawa. Sadly, it now appears to be lost down the back of the internet sofa, but remnants of it still exist in this thread (unfortunately the links to the screenshots appear to be long dead, but the textual analysis remains):

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/kurosawas-influence-on-sw.10406563/page-1

Even if you're not a Star Wars fans, it serves as a fine discussion of Kurosawa's work.

[vrailaine]

I've only seen three and really want to see more but never seem to be in the mood, probably because I don't care about Samurai and half his films seem to be about them.

Ikiru is one of my favourite films ever, loved it, LOVED IT!

Rashomon was very good but didn't blow me away or anything.

Also saw Dreams on TG4 when I was about 10, thought it was pretty fantastic, didn't know what it was for years. Had had no clue who it was by and never would have guessed it was made in the 90s.
Quite possible it's absolute shite though.