Akira Kurosawa turns 100 today

[Madara]

Arguably the world's greatest filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa was born on March 23, 1910. He would have turned 100...well, yesterday if you're in Japan, but they're celebrating the centennial today in the U.S. (It is, of course, already March 24 in Japan.) Turner Classic Movies is running Kurosawa films all day today, including RASHOMON, THE SEVEN SAMURAI, YOJIMBO and SANJURO.



THE SEVEN SAMURAI was famously remade as the western, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1961), which made stars out of Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn, and YOJIMBO was remade as an Italian western, A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1967), which made a star out of Clint Eastwood.



He didn't just make samurai films. IKIRU (1952) is a powerful drama about a middle-aged bureaucrat with terminal cancer who decides to devote his remaining days to one great final accomplishment. NO REGRETS FOR OUR YOUTH (1946) dealt with three young people in Japan, students before the war, and their lives in the build-up to the war, during the war, and its afterman. It stars the great actress, Setsuko Hara, who shares a birthday with Nozomi Tsuji and, as of this writing, is still alive-she turns 90 on June 17.



I'm somewhat humbled to say that I still have seven or eight Kurosawa films in my collection that I haven't seen yet. Problem is, these films are all so great you want to be in peak alertness and fullest of health to sit down and properly enjoy them. You can't just put them on at night and fall asleep. They're too good for that.



Kurosawa died on Sept. 6, 1998, at the age 88. I did a whole tribute to him on my blog today.

[eri]

My favorite film of his is actually Dreams! It is hard to get a hold of, but I'll always remember how well he chillingly recreated the sense of a dream, in all its abrupt strangeness and wonder. My favorite dream was his boyhood witnessing of a fox wedding.

[al kusanagi]

Also responsible for extremely hot granddaughter Yu Kurosawa. Too bad she married that fag from Sophia...

[Ap2000]

My second favourite director (after Takeshi Kitano) ever.

So many unique and influental movies he made... I'll watch one this weekend for celebration ! Not sure which one though.

[Shoujo Q]

I've never seen a Akira Kurosawa movie.



But I did know without even clicking on the thread from the main page that Madara made it. :3

[JFC]

TCM had a mini-marathon of a few of his movies on tonight.



So much for me getting anything productive done. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /laugh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':hahaha:' />

[Sabaku Ika]

The local independent movie theatre is showing his movies all this Spring. The current one is Ran. I rented that years ago and couldn't sit through it, so I'm debating whether I should try to watch it again on the big screen.

[Madara]

[quote name='Sabaku Ika' post='77593' date='Mar 25 2010, 12:00 AM']The local independent movie theatre is showing his movies all this Spring. The current one is Ran. I rented that years ago and couldn't sit through it, so I'm debating whether I should try to watch it again on the big screen.[/quote]



I saw RAN on the big screen and it was a tough one for me. Beautiful to look at, but something's missing from the drama. Ones I'd recommend without any qualms are: SEVEN SAMURAI, YOJIMBO, RASHOMON, HIGH AND LOW, IKIRU, NO REGRETS FOR OUR YOUTH, SANJURO and a film that's often cited as the inspiration for STAR WARS, HIDDEN FORTRESS.