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Akira Kurosawa
Akir Kurosawa Born 23/10/1910 Died 06/09/1998 Tokyo Japan
Japanese director of 32 films between 1943 and 1993, many of which have influenced Western Film makers. The Seven Samurai (1954) was admired by John Sturges who acknoledged it's influence on The Magnificent Seven. The Westerns of Sergione Leone show the influence of Yojimbo (1961) while aspects of the Hidden Fortress can be seen in the Star Wars Movies.
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Akira Kurosawa - news / articles
Akira Kurosawa - what members say
review by A customer from Essex
The Shogun of the big screen 20 September 2003
review by from England
Just another masterful movie from the master of masterful movies 27 September 2004
review by from Manchester, England
Akira Kurosawa Does It Again 14 January 2005
Akira Kurosawa - filmography
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Rhapsody In August
on DVD
(1993)
Starring: Richard Gere, Sachiko Murase, Hisashi Igawa
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate: 
Master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa follows up on his phantasmorgic Dreams with this delicate tale about war and memory. The film centers on Kane (Sachiko Murase) a grandmother who lives on her traditional farm in the hills near Nagasaki. Her husband and a number of siblings died in the 1945 atomic ..read more »
 
59%
from 318 members
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Madadayo
on DVD
(1993)
Starring: Tatsuo Matsumura, Kydko Kagawa, Hisashi Igawa
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate: 
This film tells the story of professor Uehida Hyakken-sama (1889-1971), in Gotemba, around the forties. He was a university professor until an air raid, when he left to become a writer and has to live in a hut. His mood has hardly changed, not by the change nor by time. Every year his students ..read more »
61%
from 340 members
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Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
(1990)
Starring: Akira Terao, Mitsuko Baisho, Toshie Negishi
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate: 
A Japanese legend... Living dolls in a peach orchard... A deadly snow fairy... A haunted war survivor... Van Gogh painting crows... A terrifying nuclear disaster... Miserly ogres... And the village of the watermills... Eight visions of breathtaking beauty. Eight powerful moments revealing human nature.
69%
from 86 members
Currently unavailable
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RAN
on DVD
(1985)
Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Mieko Harada, Akira Terao
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate: 
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
For his 27th film, the 'sensei' of Japanese cinema, Akira Kurosawa, transposes Shakespeare's KING LEAR to feudal Japan. RAN, which translates as 'chaos' or 'turmoil', is the tragic tale of Lord Hidetora, a warlord who decides to divide his empire among his three sons on the eve of his 70th birthday...read more »
73%
from 6,435 members
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RAN - Blu-ray
(1985)
Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Mieko Harada, Akira Terao
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate: 
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
For his 27th film, the 'sensei' of Japanese cinema, Akira Kurosawa, transposes Shakespeare's KING LEAR to feudal Japan. RAN, which translates as 'chaos' or 'turmoil', is the tragic tale of Lord Hidetora, a warlord who decides to divide his empire among his three sons on the eve of his 70th birthday...read more »
74%
from 459 members
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RAN - HD
(1985)
Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Mieko Harada, Akira Terao
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate: 
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
For his 27th film, the 'sensei' of Japanese cinema, Akira Kurosawa, transposes Shakespeare's KING LEAR to feudal Japan. RAN, which translates as 'chaos' or 'turmoil', is the tragic tale of Lord Hidetora, a warlord who decides to divide his empire among his three sons on the eve of his 70th birthday...read more »
75%
from 52 members
Currently unavailable
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Kagemusha
on DVD
(1980)
Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Kenichi Hagiwara, Takashi Shimura
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Just as many American studio-era directors found acclaim abroad that was denied them in their home country, by 1980 Akira Kurosawa's reputation outside Japan exceeded his esteem at home. As uncompromising as ever, he found considerable difficulty securing backing for his ambitious projects. Unsure ..read more »
70%
from 4,097 members
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Dersu Uzala
on DVD
(1975)
Starring: Yuri Solomin, Maksim Munzuk, Svetlana Danilchenko
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Kurosawa's remarkable film - his only produced and financed outside of Japan - is an extraordinary tale of friendship and survival, based on the memoirs of Russian explorer Vladimir Arseniev. In the harsh environs of the Siberian frontier, an expedition led by Arseniev encounters the nomadic Goldi ..read more »
75%
from 1,012 member
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Dodesukaden
(1970)
Starring: Yoshitaka Zushi, Kin Sugai, Toshiyuki Tonomura
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Episodes from the lives of a group of Tokyo slum-dwellers: Rokkuchan, a retarded boy who brings meaning and routine to his life by driving an imaginary streetcar; children who support their parents by scrounging or by tedious and ill-paying endeavours; schemers who plot or dream of escaping the ..read more »
56%
from 38 members
Currently unavailable
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Red Beard
on DVD
(1965)
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
The last and most ambitious of Akira Kurosawa's collaborations with Toshiro Mifune, Red Beard, marked the end of one of the most remarkable actor-director relationships in the history of cinema. Toshiro Mifune plays a commanding but humane doctor in a rural clinic in late 19th-century Japan. An ..read more »
75%
from 2,119 members
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High And Low
on DVD
(1963)
Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Based on King's Ransom, an 87th Precinct novel by Ed McBain (aka Evan Hunter), High and Low stars Toshiro Mifune as Gondo, a wealthy industrialist. Gondo is contacted by a gang of kidnappers, who inform him that they've kidnapped his son. The crooks demand a huge ransom for the boy's return -- an ..read more »
74%
from 1,556 member
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Sanjuro
on DVD
(1962)
Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshiro Mifune, Masao Shimizu
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Set in the mid-19th century when the disintegration of a rigid social structure was turning the once wealthy into paupers, or vice-versa, this kinetic drama by acclaimed Akira Kurosawa features the hero Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune), one of many samurai whose once traditional positions were fast ..read more »
74%
from 4,012 members
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Yojimbo
on DVD
(1961)
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Eijiro Tono, Seisaburo Kawazu
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
In director Akira Kurosawa's comedic YOJIMBO, a masterless samurai, Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune), wanders into a town divided by two warring clans. After displaying his formidable swordsmanship before both clans in a brawl with street thugs, Sanjuro offers his services to the highest bidder. When one ..read more »
73%
from 10,237 members
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The Bad Sleep Well
on DVD
(1960)
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Kyoko Kagawa
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
In this engaging drama, acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa deftly splices together the nuances of hypocrisy, old feudal misconceptions lingering in modern corruption, and Shakespeare's Hamlet. The rotten corporate world is taken on by Koichi Nishi (Toshiro Mifune), who is looking for ..read more »
70%
from 822 members
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Hidden Fortress
on DVD
(1958)
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Misa Uehara, Minoru Chiaki
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (original Japanese title: Kakushi Toride No San Akunin) stars Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara as a pair of misfit soldiers. Running from the enemy after a disastrous defeat, the two soldiers fall in with general Toshiro Mifune, who is in search of a huge ..read more »
72%
from 5,008 members
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Throne Of Blood
on DVD
(1957)
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Minoru Chiaki
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Macbeth is reimagined as a samurai in feudal Japan in director Akira Kurosawa's classic adaptation of the Shakespearean tragedy. Familiar with Orson Welles's more faithful adaptation, Kurosawa chose to place a more personal stamp on his version by translating the events and characters to historical ..read more »
72%
from 5,891 members
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I Live In Fear
on DVD
(1955)
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Eiko Miyoshi, Minoru Chiaki
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
When an elderly, wealthy man decides that nuclear holocaust is eminent in his country, he decides to move his family to Brazil at all costs-a place which, for some mysterious reason, he believes to be safe. His family refuses to move because they fear that the move will jeopardize their financial ..read more »
64%
from 641 members
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Seven Samurai
on DVD
(1954)
Starring: Keiko Tsushima, Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
Set in 16th Century Japan, Akira Kurosawa's epic SEVEN SAMURAI follows the plight of a defenseless farming village that lives in constant fear of marauding bandits. The farmers know that when their crops are harvested, the thugs will attack, so four men go to town in hopes of employing samurai to ..read more »
73%
from 38,271 members
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Ikiru
on DVD
(1952)
Starring: Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Miki Odagiri
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Kanji Watanabe is a longtime bureaucrat in a city office who, along with the rest of the office, spends his entire working life doing nothing of significance. After discovering he is suffering from a terminal illness, Kanji becomes intensely self-absorbed until he finds a mission to build a ..read more »
75%
from 3,923 members
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The Idiot
on DVD
(1951)
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Setsuko Hara, Masayuki Mori
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Retelling of Fydor Dostoyevsky's novel, where the action is transferred from Russia to Northern Japan. An unstable war criminal acquitted of charges gets involved with two women...
64%
from 741 members
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Scandal
on DVD
(1950)
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Shirley Yamaguchi, Noriko Sengoku
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
When a young painter meets up by chance with a popular singer, he is unaware that the paparazzi are following them. When a magazine runs a story exposing their 'secret romance', the painter battles to restore his honour.
67%
from 388 members
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Rashomon
on DVD
(1950)
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
Akira Kurosawa's highly acclaimed film, set in feudal Japan, presents an intriguing tale of violent crime in the woods, told from the perspective of four different characters--a bandit (Toshiro Mifune), a woman (Machiko Kyo), her husband (Masayuki Mori), and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura). Only two ..read more »
72%
from 9,958 members
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Stray Dog
on DVD
(1949)
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Akira Kurosawa's "Stray Dog" is a masterful mix of film noir and police thriller set on the sweltering mean streets of Occupied Tokyo. When rookie detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) has his pistol stolen from his pocket while on a bus, his frantic attempts to track down the thief lead him to an ..read more »
71%
from 2,347 members
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Drunken Angel
on DVD
(1948)
Starring: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Reizaburo Yamamoto
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
Originally titled Yoidore tenshi, Drunken Angel was director Akira Kurosawa's first auteur project. I finally discovered myself, he explained later. It was my picture: I was doing it and no one else. Takashi Shimura plays an alcoholic doctor, running a fleabitten clinic in the slums of Tokyo. ..read more »
71%
from 902 members
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Early Kurosawa - Collection
(4 discs)
on DVD
Starring: Susumu Fujita, Denjiro Okochi, Takeshi Shimura
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Certificate:
This collection features six early films from master Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa; the 1943 SANSHIRO SUGATA, Kurosawa's debut film, follows a judo student's difficult but compelling spiritual journey. Its sequel, SANSHIRO SUGATA: PART TWO (1945), continues the tale of Sanshiro and his quest to ..read more »
65%
from 9 members
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Akira Kurosawa facts
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...Akira Kurosawa's magnificent film combines an insightful meditation on the strategies of war with an equally brilliant examination of what drives people in their struggles to...
