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Arguably the most famous and influential of all Asian directors, Akira Kurosawa is undoubtedly one of the finest filmmakers of all time. His career spanned 57 years and 30 films, ranging from the bizarre mystery of Rashomon to Seven Samurai and the heartbreaking Dersu Uzzala. Often referred to as the Sensei of Japanese cinema and earning himself the nickname ‘The Emperor’ thanks to his domineering style, he has gone on to inspire directors and films including Ingmar Bergman’s Virgin Spring to George Lucas’s Star Wars.
Kurosawa’s best known films are his historical ones, combining a mixture of action and drama varying from highly entertaining commercial films like Sanjuro to the awesome spectacle of Ran. He used elements of traditional Noh drama to emphasise elements of the plot and highlight certain features. Yet at the same time Kurosawa used many more modern influences, such as his favourite director John Ford whose influence is obvious in the landscapes that haunt many of Kurosawa’s films, notably in the opening of Ran when the viewer is awestruck by the phenomenal cinematography used to capture the landscape during a boar hunt.
Another noticeable motif that is used throughout his films is the use of weather to emphasise the emotion and action of a scene. During the battle sequence in the finale of his legendary Seven Samurai, a torrent of rain comes from the sky, adding to the hellish nightmare of the battle, which is undoubtedly one of the finest achievements of cinema.
Many directors have long collaborations with skilled actors but few come close to the collaboration that took place between Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. Working on 16 films together, their partnership is one of the most stunning in film history, producing some of the most remarkable films ever made such as Rashomon, Yojimbo and Seven Samurai amongst others. Mifune was happy to work with Kurosawa, agreeing to carry out many bizarre demands of the director; for example, diving into a freezing river in winter wearing only a loincloth containing an enormous live carp for Seven Samurai. Or in Throne of Blood when the director had skilled archers shoot arrows literally inches away from him to create one of cinema’s most memorable death scenes. However, Kurosawa also worked in collaborations with numerous other actors such as Takashi Shimura who starred in a staggering 21 films for the director.
Martin Scorsese is quoted as having said that Kurosawa’s influence on filmmakers is ‘incomparable’, and it is not hard to see why. In Rashomon, the film which was largely responsible for bringing Japanese cinema to world attention, Kurosawa told four separate versions of the same time, creating a unique mystery. The first time, the camera essentially lies, showing the audience false elements of a story, thereby sparking ideas for other films, such as the Usual Suspects. Yet his other influences are as important with the film Seven Samurai literally creating the ‘men on a mission’ genre, which has been so often emulated, and has been a blueprint for action movies ever since. It is also worth noting that George Lucas’s Star Wars films would be inconceivable without the influence of Kurosawa’s work. The director has admitted that the characters of C3PO and R2D2 were based upon the peasants from The Hidden Fortress, alongside Kurosawa’s other Samurai films.
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