Text by flavorpill NY
Ahead of Akira Kurosawa‘s centenary on March 23, Film Forum more or less runs through the auteur’s consummate filmography (on queue: Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo) in six action-packed weeks. Two masterpieces also bracket this domo-arigato series: Stray Dog, an early, naturalistic film about a detective and the search for his missing gun in postwar Tokyo, and Ran, Kurosawa’s superlative, late-career translation of King Lear to the feudal East and its tragic, color-specific daimyos. The former stars Toshiro Mifune and the latter Tatsuya Nakadai, two Japanese icons who reappear throughout a canon that incorporates everything from pulp to Noh theatre, Shakespearean tragedy to the almighty Bushido code.
Filmography
Year | Title | Japanese | Romanization |
---|---|---|---|
1943 | Sanshiro Sugata aka Judo Saga |
姿三四郎 | Sugata Sanshirō |
1944 | The Most Beautiful | 一番美しく | Ichiban utsukushiku |
1945 | Sanshiro Sugata Part II aka Judo Saga 2 |
續姿三四郎 | Zoku Sugata Sanshirô |
The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail | 虎の尾を踏む男達 | Tora no o wo fumu otokotachi | |
1946 | No Regrets for Our Youth | わが青春に悔なし | Waga seishun ni kuinashi |
1947 | One Wonderful Sunday | 素晴らしき日曜日 | Subarashiki nichiyōbi |
1948 | Drunken Angel | 酔いどれ天使 | Yoidore tenshi |
1949 | The Quiet Duel | 静かなる決闘 | Shizukanaru ketto |
Stray Dog | 野良犬 | Nora inu | |
1950 | Scandal | 醜聞 | Sukyandaru aka Shūbun |
Rashomon | 羅生門 | Rashōmon | |
1951 | The Idiot | 白痴 | Hakuchi |
1952 | Ikiru aka To Live |
生きる | Ikiru |
1954 | Seven Samurai | 七人の侍 | Shichinin no samurai |
1955 | I Live in Fear aka Record of a Living Being |
生きものの記録 | Ikimono no kiroku |
1957 | Throne of Blood aka Spider Web Castle |
蜘蛛巣城 | Kumonosu-jō |
The Lower Depths | どん底 | Donzoko | |
1958 | The Hidden Fortress | 隠し砦の三悪人 | Kakushi toride no san akunin |
1960 | The Bad Sleep Well | 悪い奴ほどよく眠る | Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru |
1961 | Yojimbo aka The Bodyguard |
用心棒 | Yōjinbō |
1962 | Sanjuro | 椿三十郎 | Tsubaki Sanjūrō |
1963 | High and Low aka Heaven and Hell |
天国と地獄 | Tengoku to jigoku |
1965 | Red Beard | 赤ひげ | Akahige |
1970 | Dodesukaden | どですかでん | Dodesukaden |
1975 | Dersu Uzala | デルス・ウザーラ | Derusu Uzāra |
1980 | Kagemusha aka The Shadow Warrior |
影武者 | Kagemusha |
1985 | Ran | 乱 | Ran |
1990 | Dreams aka Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams |
夢 | Yume |
1991 | Rhapsody in August | 八月の狂詩曲 | Hachigatsu no rapusodī aka Hachigatsu no kyōshikyoku |
1993 | Madadayo aka Not Yet |
まあだだよ | Mādadayo |
2010 | Gendai no Noh aka The Raven |
(posthumous release) |