Tag: Toshiro Mifune

Yojimbo (1961)

Kurosawa’s dust-filled samurai actioner is a very Japanese Western and huge fun

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshiro Mifune (“Kuwabatake Sanjuro”), Eijirō Tōno (Gonji), Tatsuya Nakadai (Unosuke), Seizaburo Kawazu (Seibei), Kyū Sazanka (Ushitora), Isuzu Yamada (Orin), Daisuke Katō (Inokichi), Takashi Shimura (Tokuemon), Hiroshi Tachikawa (Yoichiro), Yosuke Natsuki (Farmer’s Son), Kamatari Fujiwara (Tazaemon), Atsushi Watanabe (Coffin maker)

An unknown stranger arrives in a dust-filled border town and finds himself stuck in the middle of a long-running feud between two gangs with only his wits and skill with his weapon for any advantage. If you had any doubt about the influence American Westerns had on Akira Kurosawa, look no further than Yojimbo. Perhaps the most purely enjoyable movie Kurosawa ever made, Yojimbo can also lay claim to being one of the greatest Westerns ever made, given greater depth with Kurosawa’s subtle social satire on Japanese samurai culture. This is Kurosawa at his best: stripped-back and dynamic with a weight behind the fun.

Our unnamed samurai is (Toshiro Mifune), now a wandering ronin. The gangs: on one side Seibei (Seizaburo Kawazu) the town’s long-term boss, whose ruthless wife Orin (Isuzu Yamada) is the power behind a throne she intends to pass to their timid son Yoichiro (Hiroshi Tachikawa). On the other: Ushitora (Kyū Sazanka), Seibei’s former number two furious at being passed over as heir apparent, backed by his brothers, dim but strong Inokichi (Daisuke Katō) and would-be gunslinger Unosuko (Tatsuya Nakadai). The rivalry has bought the town to the edge of ruin and our unnamed samurai – giving himself the spontaneous pseudonym “Kuwabatake Sanjuro” (literally “Mulberry Field aged Thirty”) – use his wit and ingenuity to play both sides against each other to get rid of them.

The Western influences in Yojimbo are immediately obvious. The town looks like a Fordian dustboal frontier towns, Kurosawa delighting in the widescreen, windswept streets the site of so many slow-burn face-offs. Rivals meet on main street, facing each other at opposite ends, like High Noon. Seibei operates out of a worn-out brothel, Sanjuro stays in a saloon run by a weary old-timer, a local sheriff is a hopelessly inept foreluck-tugger, Sanjuro has the same gruff excellence with a sword as John Wayne and Alan Ladd had with a gun. By the time Unosuko turns up clutching the town’s only gun and preening like Jack Palace in Shane, it’s impossible to miss we are in the Old Japanese West.

This is a town in total breakdown, where the coffin-maker makes a huge income creating piles of tombs for the rival gangsters who fall in constant duels. Both gangs are in, their way, pathetic. Far from intimidating, Seibei (a hilariously whiny Seizaburo Kawazu) is a puffed-up old man, easily brow-beaten by his wife. Unosake has more swagger and guts, but he’s as cluelessly inept as Seibei. Both gangsters have crews stuffed with fighters but lack almost anyone with any actual skill. When the gangsters are first manipulated into facing-off, they posture and feint at each other like blow-hard school bullies then seem relieved when the arrival of a local official leads to a sudden ceasefire.

Parodying the old Samurai class, Sanjuro is a million miles from the sort of elite honour-bound soldier we expect. In one of his finest performances, Toshiro Mifune is scruffy, cynical and works very hard to give the impression he’s more interested in his immediate needs than any higher purpose. Mifune is gruff, constantly scratching or chewing: he’s a prototype Clint Eastwood (and Yojimbo was ripped off by Leone for A Fistful of Dollars, leading to a Toho Studios legal case), a morally ambiguous figure who does the right thing when it coincides with his own interests. His motives are unknowable. Why does he set-out to destroy both gangs? Is it sympathy for the mess of the town, or is it because he sees a chance to make a quick buck from the mess? Is it because he’s bored (and eventually annoyed) and does it for his own amusement?

The brilliance of Mifune’s shaggy-dog performance is that it could be all or none of these things. Sanjuro does just one, unmistakeably, decent, selfless thing in the film: saving Ushitora’s unwilling mistress and her downtrodden family. What does it get him? Their near suicidal deference and ostentatious gratitude drives him nearly to distraction and leads to a near-fatal beating. But it really rankles Sanjuro because it’s possible he despises the idea of decency in himself, an intriguing insight into what could be unknown darknesses in his past. Does he know selfless acts can become the only chink in your armour?

Aside from that, his mastery of the situation is hugely entertaining. Never mind two steps, he seems a marathon ahead of the rest. Provoking a pointless early clash with Ushitora’s heavies, he bests them in seconds with a series of lightning fast sword strokes (Star Wars Mos Eisley-based Kenobi swordplaywas clearly inspired by this), establishing in seconds he’s the alpha both sides need to compete over. When action kicks in, Sanjuro is unmatched by the Dickensian collection of street thugs both sides have amassed, his swift reflexes and expert slices reducing even a hideously outnumbered fight into a curb-stomp clash. You can see Kurosawa’s influence over Leone here: clashes in Yojimbo have long build-ups and explosive, sometimes violently bloody outcomes (an arm severed here, a spray of blood there, characters bleeding out).

But Sanjuro’s other skill is his ability to appraise rivals instantly. None of them disappoint in their transparent greed and shortsightedness. Kurosawa visually embodies Sanjuro’s shrewdness by frequently having him climb up a tower platform on the main street to literally look down on the results of his manipulations. No one can match him. Orin – a pleasing twist on her Throne of Blood role as an ineffective Lady Macbeth by Isuzu Yamada – thinks she’s smart enough to double-cross him, but her brains only look impressive matched against the mediocrities of the town. Daisuke Katō’s Inokichi – so dim he can’t even count with the aid of his fingers – literally believes anything he’s told by the last person who spoke to him. Only Tatsuya Nakadai’s smug Unosuke is in anyway threat, but he’s a preening show-off whose only qualification for being the toughest guy in town is because he owns the only gun (which he can’t help fetishistically stroking at every opportunity).

The gun is another sign of a culture at crossroads – the major threat to Sanjuro comes not from any human, but from a distance-killing tool that could wipe out his vastly superior tactical and fighting ability in a second. Yojimbo is showing us a Japan tipping over the edge into a future where ruthless gangs, with more brawn than brain, will drive towns like this into the ground – but our hero, a symbol of a bygone age of heroics, isn’t traditionally heroic either: he’s a scruffy, self-interested loner, who despises nobility. Our other samurai, Seibei’s pet-trainer, is hardly a great advert for samurai either, peddling his skills for cash and huffily walking out when his value is not recognised.

All this is wrapped up in a film that is undeniably hugely entertaining. The action, when it comes, is truly exciting. Mifune is superb, charismatic, likeable with a wry charm and scruffy smile. Kurosawa’s dust-blown pseudo-western is brilliantly assembled, and its wry social satire on an increasingly disorganised Japan falling into chaos (with a golden age that wasn’t that golden behind it) never buries the thrills and spills of his masterfully constructed action drama. Yojimbo is certainly his most purely entertaining film, stripped back and avoiding the overindulgence and bombast of his less successful films. It’s a treat.

The Hidden Fortress (1958)

Kurosawa’s samurai entertainment is overlong but has just enough action and adventure

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshiro Mifune (General Rokurota Makabe), Minoru Chiaki (Tahei), Kamatari Fujiwara (Matashichi), Susumu Fujita (General Hyoe Tadokoro), Takashi Shimura (General Izumi Nagakura), Misa Uehara (Princess Yuki), Eiko Miyoshi (Yuki’s lady-in-waiting), Toshiko Higuchi (Prostitute)

A princess hides in a castle from the wicked forces who have captured her kingdom. Her only hope is a noble general who has concealed the kingdom’s gold in bundles of wood, hidden in a lake at a mysterious castle. The general needs to get the gold and the princess through miles of hostile territory, with only a pair of greedy, incompetent peasants to help. This fairy tale structure is spun by Kurosawa into a samurai action-adventure with Mifune (inevitably) as the general, Misa Uehara as the Princess and Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara as the peasants. It’s good fun, overlong, but an entertaining ride – and one now best known now for its influence over Star Wars.

Kurosawa, after pouring his heart and soul into Throne of Blood, needed to relax. He decided it was time for an entertainment, something to please the crowds. The Hidden Fortress is certainly that, Kurosawa’s first film shot on impressive widescreen Tohoscope, with plenty of horse-bound action and swordplay. It’s really a Kurosawa Westerns, with heroes on the trail on a mission with bad guys to foil. But, as is sometimes the case with Kurosawa, it’s length and scope frequently makes it feel slightly indulgent, while it’s mix of comedy and drama doesn’t always sit comfortably together.

The Hidden Fortress is though highly cinematic. As well as Kurosawa’s enjoyment of the wide-angle lens – soaking up the slopes of Mount Fuji, often rolling in a beautiful mist – it frequently employs Kurosawa’s love of fast-editing tricks, in particular fast wipes to move us seamlessly from one place and time to another (one of many flourishes that influenced George Lucas who made these Kurosawa wipes internationally famous). A horse charge, where General Makabe chases down the samurai hunting them, is a grippingly frenetic with its pace and energy.

Kurosawa mixes this with comedy, though his unusual POV characters. In another move cited by Lucas’ as the inspiration for C3PO and R2D2, much of The Hidden Fortress takes place from the perspective of its peasant sidekicks. But, unlike the genial droids, Tahei and Matashichi are greedy, cowardly and selfish, frequently proving themselves untrustworthy. But, then in a touch of social commentary, perhaps they don’t owe anything to a general who treats them as slaves and (initially) plans to kill them once they are no longer useful. They are played with energetic larger-than-life force by Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara that contrasts neatly with the gruff authority of Mifune.

It’s them we follow from the start, feuding over robbing the body of a slain samurai before being flung into the slave mines of the Princess’ former kingdom. One of Hidden Fortress’ gently played themes is the class difference between these two sons-of-the-soil and the upper-classes they (reluctantly) serve. For starters, that service comes with no choice – it never occurs to Makabe that they have a say in the matter – and they are told almost nothing about the purpose of their journey. They are instead tools for a higher purpose, just as the Princess’ similar-looking maid is sent to town to be captured and executed, to help protect the bloodline of the royal family.

It’s an attitude the Princess – well played by Misa Uehara as a stubborn young woman, full of righteous indignation at her restrictive office – comes to deplore. She, unlike anyone else among the elite, questions the idea of the poor as unimportant puppets for their betters, and it is she who is drawn to protect people, including a mis-treated prostitute who she insists Makabe buys the freedom of. It’s also she – more than anyone else, including the two peasants – drawn towards the anarchic Fire Festival they encounter, with its dismissal of worldly goods and embracing of enjoying life. But, perhaps Kurosawa’s point is it’s only the wealthy who can afford to indulge themselves with such thoughts: peasants have far fewer options and no choice but to scrabble in the dirt for coins.

This social commentary would perhaps be more widely discussed if the film had kept Kurosawa’s original title, Three Bad Men in a Hidden Fortress: a title that tips Tahei, Matashichi and Makabe into the same morally ambiguous pot, all obsessed with worldly needs (money or the continuation of the royal house) over any concerns about those around them. But, somehow, it’s easier to focus on the wheedling greed of the peasants, and overlook the lofty cold distance of the general, because he’s a noble guy, brave and daring who spares his opponent after a fair duel.

It’s also because The Hidden Fortress is less focused on these elements – Seven Samurai did the snobbery of the samurai class and the mixed motives of the working classes more effectively in any case – and more on being a rollicking, road-movie entertainment. It’s Western-style (in both ways) misfit band adventures, features expertly filmed action set-pieces. Best of all the previously mentioned chase, and a gripping one-on-one duel between Rakabe and his rival General Tadokoro (a fine performance of quiet dignity from Susumu Fujita), that is edge-of-the-seat in its mix of graceful camera work and exciting sword play.

The Hidden Fortress is entertaining, but it’s hard to escape the feeling there is too much of it. Despite not being as long as Seven Samurai, it feels less forceful narratively, largely features less compelling characters and is less well balanced between depth and action. Its plot feels almost deliberately lightweight and the resolution feels rushed. The film’s fairy-tale simplicity really needs a relatable hero at its heart – but the focus on the sometimes irritating peasants means we don’t get that. Fundamentally, The Hidden Fortress is an adventure story from a director, taking a rest from more complex work. It entertains, but feels like it lives in the shadow of other films, even before its connection to Star Wars turned it into a footnote in another film’s story.

Throne of Blood (1957)

Kurosawa’s Macbeth adaptation beautifully captures much of the spirit of Shakespeare

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshiro Mifune (Taketoki Washizu), Isuzu Yamada (Lady Asaji Washizu), Minoru Chiaki (Yoshiaki Miki), Takashi Shimura (Noriyasu Odagura), Akira Kubo (Yoshiteru Miki), Yōichi Tachikawa (Kunimaru Tsuzuki), Takamaru Sasaki (Lord Kuniharu Tsuzuki), Chieko Naniwa (Forest witch)

Shakespeare is universal. What more proof do you need, than to see Macbeth very much present in Throne of Blood, Kurosawa’s samurai epic version of the Bard’s Scottish play. Kurosawa’s film takes the plot of Shakespeare’s tragedy, with touches of Japanese Noh theatre, told with his distinctive visual eye. It makes for truly great cinema, one of Kurosawa’s undisputed masterpieces – even if it loses some of the greatness of Shakespeare along the way.

You can though see Shakespeare from the beginning in Kurosawa’s mist filled epic (bringing back memories of the Scottish Highlands). A badly-wounded soldier brings news to Lord Tsuzuki (Takamaru Sasaki) of the defeat of his traitorous former friend thanks to the brilliant generalship of Washizu (Toshiro Mifune). Meanwhile, in the forest, Washizu and his fellow general Miki (Minoru Chiaki) encounter a witch (Chieko Naniwa) who prophesies that Washizu will one day be the Lord. When other prophesies proof true, Washizu starts to think how he could make the last true as well. His ambitions are encouraged by his wife Lady Asaji (Isuzu Yamada), who persuades him murder is the best tool for succession. But can they live with the consequences of their crime?

So much, so Shakespeare right? Throne of Blood ingeniously translates Shakespeare’s plot to an entirely different setting, one of feudal Japan. It also translates some of the Bard’s most striking verbal imagery into visuals: the strange mixture of rain and sunshine (‘so foul and fair a day’) that Washizu and Miki wade through before they meet the witch; Miki’s horse thrashing wildly through the courtyard like Duncan’s; the lamps that light the way to Tsuzuki’s chamber (like Macbeth’s dagger). Kurosawa’s visual transformation of the play’s imagery is breathtakingly original.

On its release Throne of Blood was savaged by Western critics for its cheek, before critical consensus shifted to proclaim it one of the greatest of all Shakespeare adaptations. But do you still have Shakespeare without the language (and by that, I don’t mean from English into translation, but its complete removal). Kurosawa’s film makes no attempt to replicate the poetry of Shakespeare (most strikingly, its equivalent of the “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech is Washizu shrieking “Fool! Fool” as he sits in frustration, a neat image but one where you’d wish Mifune had been given more to play). But Throne of Blood may not be a complete Shakespeare adaptation, but it’s possibly one of the greatest adaptations ever made of a Shakespeare story.

This is because Throne of Blood captures so many of the core thematic concepts of Macbeth, not least its destructive, nihilistic force and the terrible, crushing burden self-imposed destiny and ambition sets. Toshiro Mifune’s Washizu may more of a brute than Macbeth, but his blustering, aggressive exterior hides a weak man, insecure and dependent on others. His weakness is in fact a lack of imagination, his inability to picture a life outside of the tracks laid down before him by the witch. His lack of independent thought is recognised by his wife, Asaji who nudges and pushes Washizu in the direction she (and he, deep down) wishes at every opportunity.

Washizu is soon trapped in a cycle of murder and disgrace he can’t escape. The walls of the room where he and Asaji plot the murder of Lord Tsuzuki is still smeared with the blood from the seppuku of its former owner who also betrayed Tsuzuki. Whenever he enters the forest, Washizu seems almost wrapped inside its branches, unable to find his way. Before a dinner to host the murdered Miki, Washizu listens (like Claudius) to a noh actor recount details of a crime all too similar to his own. As Lord, Washizu cowers powerlessly in it just as its previous owner did. Even the film itself is a grim cycle of the inevitability of destruction: Kurosawa’s open mist rolls away to reveal a monument to the castle before the castle itself emerges to take its place, the film returning at its end to the same mist-covered monument. These bookends also stress how transient (and pointless) this grappling for power is – nature will eventually claim all.

But it also suggests a world where death is so inevitable, that you might as well seize what power you can when you can. Even Miki – the film’s finest performance from Minoru Chiaki, full of subtle reactions of resignation and disgust – turns a blind eye (despite his sideways glances of disgust at key moments) to Washizu’s crimes, to further his son’s promised hopes for the throne. Asaji is motivated by her belief that there is no sin in seizing what you can from our brief time in this world, firmly telling Washizu that not only is it his duty to deliver the prophecy but – in a world where Tsuzaki gained power by murdering the lord before him – he would hardly be the first and that no previous killer trusts a potential new rival in any case.

Asaji is strikingly played by Isuzu Yamada, a quiet, scheming figure who sees everything and has an inner strength her husband lacks. Like Mifune, she uses the striking poses of Noh theatre to fabulous effect – Asaji herself moves, on the night of the murder, in a noh dance craze – and to communicate the dance of power between them throughout that long night. Kurosawa also uses silence beautifully with Asaji, most strikingly of all her silent, almost supernatural, collecting of drugged saki for Tsuzaki’s guards: as she walks into, disappears into darkness, then reappears carrying the drink all that is heard is the squeak of her robes across the floor. Yamada’s controlled, Noh-chill makes her brief collapse into futile hand-washing madness all the more striking.

After the long night of the murder, Kurosawa presents a world that grows more and more uncontrolled. In a brilliant innovation, Asaji provokes the murder of Miki by lying (perhaps?) about being pregnant, making Washizu desperate to protect the chance of a royal line. Miki’s murder leads to his terrifying pale ghost silently challenging an increasingly wild Washizu, who thrashs weakly around the room seemingly without any control. Mifune’s powerfully gruff Washizu becomes increasingly petulant and desperate, lambasting his troops and clinging to the letter of the prophecies rather than their more detailed meaning. Mifune’s striking poses – inspired by noh theatre – seems to trap him even more as hyper-real passengers in a pre-determined story. If Kurosawa’s adaptation has rinsed much of their complexity out, he firmly establishes the couple at its centre as trapped souls in an inescapable cycle.

Kurosawa innovates further by introducing a sort of Greek chorus of regular soldiers, ordinary warriors under Washizu’s command whose faith in their commander (they clearly know he murdered Tsuzaki) shrinks as Washizu’s grip on the situation fails. Washizu clings to belief in his invulnerablity – even after the prophecy about the impossible circumstances needed for his defeat (as if a forest can ever move!) is told to him in a fit of mocking laughter by the androgynous witch and a string of suspicious woodland spirits.

It culminates in Washizu instigating his own destruction, bragging to his men about the obscure circumstances that will lead to his defeat – leading to his own disillusioned men fragging the panicked lord the second the situation comes to pass. Kurosawa’s ending is visually extraordinary, Washizu pierced with so many arrows he resembles a human porcupine (Mifune’s terror was real, the actor dodging real arrows). Just as Asaji collapses into madness, Washizu’s fate is ignoble – Kurosawa doesn’t even afford him Macbeth’s brave duel against Macduff, this great warrior instead going down without so much as inflicting a scratch on Throne of Blood’s Malcolm and his forces.

Throne of Blood focuses beautifully on some (not all) of the key themes in Macbeth. It presents a fatalistic world where choices are few and the deadly cycle of death never seems to stop. Kurosawa interprets this all beautifully, transferring Shakespeare’s verbal imagery into intelligent, dynamic imagery. Sure, in removing the text it removes the core thing that makes Shakespeare Shakespeare – and also leads to the simplifying of its characters, in particular its leads who lose much of their depth and shade. But as a visual presentation reinvention of one of Shakespeare’s stories, this is almost with parallel, a triumphant and gripping film that constantly rewards.

Seven Samurai (1954)

Superb, archetypal action-adventure men-on-a-mission film: Kurosawa’s masterpiece, brave, bold and thrilling film-making

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshiro Mifune (Kikuchiyo), Takashi Shimura (Kambei Shimada), Daisuke Katō (Shichirōji), Isao Kimura (Katsushirō Okamoto), Minoru Chiaki (Heihachi Hayashida), Seiji Miyaguchi (Kyūzō), Yoshio Inaba (Gorōbei Katayama), Yoshio Tsuchiya (Rikichi), Bokuzen Hidari (Yohei), Yukiko Shimazaki (Rikichi’s wife), Kamatari Fujiwara (Manzō), Keiko Tsushima (Shino), Kokuten Kōdō (Gisaku)

I’ve often been a Kurosawa sceptic. But it’s hard to stay critical, when he made a masterpiece as near perfect as Seven Samurai. It’s one of those films that is long (the favoured cut is nearly three and a half hours) but never once drags. Kurosawa directs with such intelligence, skill and pace, you can’t help but be swept up in it. It’s one of the finest action epics ever made, but also has a rich vein of sadness and melancholy. After all, the samurai may fight the good fight, but they always lose.

In the sixteenth century, a farming village is under-threat from a bandits, rogue samurai turned ronin, who plan to steal the harvest. To protect themselves, the village elder (Kokuten Kōdō) declares they need samurai of their own (and since the farmers have little to offer, they better “hire hungry samurai”). They recruit a team of seven, led by experienced Kambei (Takashi Shimura), who accepts out of nobility. Among the team is wild-card peasant-turned-wannabe-Samurai Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune). The seven arrive in the village and prepare for battle: but, even when working together, no one ever completely forgets the rigid societal boundaries of Japanese culture.

Seven Samurai is a wonderful character study, a sublime action film and complex and engaging exploration of Japanese history and society. It also has a perfect three act structure, it’s run time expertly divided into the samurai’s recruitment, preparation and defence of the village. This careful construction counters that epic run time – each act tells an almost self-contained story, meaning the film’s momentum never slackens.

It’s bought together by a director making a perfect fusion between Japanese cinema and his American and European influences. Kurosawa had never been shy about his admiration for directors like Ford and Hawks. You see elements of cowboy flicks throughout: from the set-up of the villagers as homesteaders, the samurai as the cavalry and the rogue ronin as the Indians, down to sweeping camera shots and vistas straight from Ford (the kinetic energy of Stagecoach is surely an influence). His Western influences always made Kurosawa more digestible than (for example) Ozu.

Seven Samurai is an also electric employment of Eisenstein style techniques of skilful editing, dissolves, fast cutting and an embracing of the language of cinema. Kurosawa accentuates action with slow motion: when Kambei dispatches a bandit (in his superb introduction scene), the body falls seemingly forever, death building in impact. Zoom cuts introduce locations, bringing us closer and closer to events. Kurosawa shot the battles with three cameras (a master and two roving cameras) allowing him to capture the kinetic action of his rain-soaked finale. Brilliant montages introduce concepts, characters and themes. It’s a masterclass.

It’s also masterful at quickly sketching character. We know from his first introduction – a brilliant cold-open fifteen minutes or so into the film – that Kambei is a man of both shrewd tactical awareness and puts duty before superficial pride, by his willingness to shave his hair so he can pass as a monk to rescue a child. (The gasps of those watching say it all at this willing acceptance of a cultural mark of shame). Kyūzō is introduced duelling with wooden swords. Why don’t we swop to real blades says his opponent: because you’ll die, Kyūzō matter-of-factly describes, his matter-of-fact bluntness and lack of bragging backed up by his immense skill when the chap dies seconds later. Gorōbei’s shrewdness is shown by the ease he dodges Kambei’s ambush test, just as Kikuchiyo’s rawness is when he blunders straight into it (and promptly loses his temper). Little moments like this abound, in a film stuffed with clever character beats.

The film presents a Japanese culture where concepts of honour and self-sacrifice sit awkwardly alongside regimented hierarchical and societal rules. The samurai can’t help but look down on the peasants – even while they see it as their duty to protect the weak. The villagers, in turn, look at the samurai as barely-to-be-trusted potential oppressors or dangerous parasites who steal their land and daughters (or both). Much of the film’s second act, as the samurai train the villagers to resist the attack, is about these two communities learning to respect each other. But it’s a tenuous alliance, held together by circumstance: when the dust settles, the surviving samurai are no longer welcome.

The samurai are a dying breed. Kambei knows the future belongs to people who provide industry and food. Samurai principles of honour and duty, pride in their skill, is also increasingly irrelevant in a world where the gun decides conflict. The ronin have three rifles and these deadly weapons are no respecter of skill or honour (none of the seven are bested in conflict, but all who fall do so to a bullet). Perhaps this is why the samurai cling to their principles and their honour. They know the world they knew is dying away and that there may be no place for them in the new.

This conflict is given a human shape by Kikuchiyo. Played with an electric, charismatic wildness by Toshiro Mifune (allowed to let rip, he’s a breath-taking explosion of jagged movements, eccentric line deliveries and unbound energy), Kikuchiyo is neither peasant nor samurai. Bought up from working stock – carrying stolen papers of nobility to try and pass himself off as samurai – he’s also rejected by his farmer peers for his warrior status. This makes him a character who can expose hypocrisies on both sides: denouncing the farmers pleading for help but cowering from the samurai; then angrily arguing samurai selfishness and pride have left the peasants with little choice but to horde food and riches to survive.

Not that Kurosawa is shy of admiration for the samurai. Yes, the flaws of their class are exposed – and we see more than enough their potential for arrogance, pride and violence. But the seven also contain a collection of their best traits. Takashi Shimura is brilliant as Kambei: selfless and honourable who takes on the task to honour the peasant’s offering all they can (however little that be). Heihachi (played by an ebullient Minoru Chiaki) represents generosity and warmth. Kyūzō (an enigmatic Seiji Miyaguchi) is awash with self-effacing warrior skill, shrugging off his feats with simple matter-of-fact statements. Shichirōji and Gorōbei are loyal and thoughtful warriors, Katsushirō (a charming Isao Kimura) a decent man eager to prove his worth. These are the best of their class.

They’ll need to be to win in this desperate action. Their preparation carefully outlines the obstacles facing to defence of this village – and to corral the villagers to defend their property. Houses outside the village walls are abandoned (Kambei seeing down a near rebellion on this, with threats of immediate justice), a raid on the ronin’s base aims to reduce their numerical advantage, the difficulty of turning the terrain against superior numbers repeatedly made plain. Kurosawa’s visual storytelling means the action when it comes is not only captivating, but completely understandable.

And what action. Seven Samurai can take its place on any list of the greatest war films ever made. The final hour features attack-after-attack on the village, interspersed with raids, skirmishes and derring-do. Both Kyūzō and Kikuchiyo take solo missions out of the village, though Kikuchiyo’s hunt for glory, even while he captures a rifle, leaves part of the wall undefended and leads to tragedy (Kambei is furious at this failure in discipline). It culminates in a rain-soaked final stand, shot with an all-absorbing power and engrossing kinetic energy.

The samurai sacrifice much for the village. But for what thanks? A peasant disguises his daughter as a boy, because he assumes, if discovered, the samurai will instinctively rape her. When the ronin don’t arrive as expected, the peasants grumble that the samurai are eating more than their fair share. As the samurai fall, their deaths are marked with a decreasing lack of notice (the final deaths don’t even gain on-screen funerals). With victory assured, the peasants return to their crop and don’t even lift a hand to wave the samurai goodbye.

It seems like poor reward for people who have sacrificed so much. But then that’s part of the point Kurosawa is making. Some samurai chose honour. Some choose the opposite. But they are always relics of a feudal system that is being left behind by events and the modern world. Its not just guns that will take them eventually. It’s a sadness that adds an even richer vein to this gripping, superb action drama. Kurosawa’s films may have flaws – but he doesn’t put a foot wrong in Seven Samurai.

Midway (1976)

Charlton Heston fights in one of the great naval battles at Midway

Director: Jack Smight

Cast: Charlton Heston (Capt Matt Garth), Henry Fonda (Adm Chester W Nimitz), James Coburn (Capt Vinton Maddox), Glenn Ford (Rear Adm Raymond Spruance), Hal Holbrook (Comm Joseph Rochefort), Toshiro Mifune (Adm Isoroku Yamamoto), Robert Mitchum (Adm William Halsey), Cliff Robertson (Comm Carl Jessop), Robert Wagner (Lt Comm Ernest L Blake), Robert Webber (Rear Adm Jack Fletcher), James Shigeta (Vice Adm Chuichi Nagumo)

On 4^th June 1942, the fate of the Pacific naval war was arguably settled. The Japanese plan to invade the American base on the island of Midway and, crucially, wipe-out the American aircraft carrier force, instead saw a near total US victory and all four Japanese aircraft carriers destroyed. The story is re-told here as a classic all-star Hollywood epic, with the first hour dedicated to the planning and the second hour to the events of 4^thJune.

After its – successful – run in the cinemas, Midway was re-edited into a two-part TV mini-series. To be honest, that feels more like its natural home. It’s competently directed by Jack Smight – but no more than that – and revolves around several scenes of star-actors pushing models around maps and less famous actors pretending to fly planes in front of blue-screen. The film makes a proud statement at the start of how it has chosen to use only actual archive combat footage to “honour those who fought” – but this actually, you suspect, was motivated more by the fact it’s much cheaper to purchase and clean up piles of stock footage than it is to shoot things afresh.

The main narrative covers the planning and the crucial day of the battle itself. A brief “human interest” story is introduced via Charlton Heston’s (fictional) Captain Matt Garth, an aide of Admiral Nimitz. Will Chuck improve his relationship with his fighter pilot son, who has fallen in love with a Japanese girl? Whadda you think? Saying that, this rather clumsy human-interest story (which features the only female character in the film) does make some interestingly critical points about the policy of internment against Japanese Americans – stressing both the injustice and explicit racism (American Germans and Italians faced no such fate) behind the policy.

In fact, Midway is very sympathetic in general to the Japanese – as Nimitz even says at the end, perhaps it was less a question of skill than luck that led to the final outcome. The Japanese navy is presented as an honourable and thoughtful opponent, respectful of human life and conducting the war via a code of honour (the kamikaze runs of cliché are completely absent). In particular Admiral Naguma (well played by James Shigeta, in possibly the film’s stand out performance) is a decent man caught-out continuously by horrendous luck and timing, who pays a heavy price. Midway is strong in stressing there is no leeway at sea – get caught out there and it’s the bottom of the briney for you.

The Japanese planning is even slightly tragic in its flawed assumptions – crucially they are totally unaware that their codes are broken and that, far from launching a surprise strike, they are actually sailing into something of a trap – while Toshiro Mifune brings a lot of nobility to Yamamoto even if all he really does is pensively stare at a series of maps.

On the American side, Fonda leads the way, giving Nimitz more than a touch of Fordian home-spun heroism. Heston’s presence does well to link together the various true-life characters and location. Most of the rest of the all-star cast are restricted to one or two scenes: Coburn rocks up to handover a report from Washington, Wagner briefly pushes models across a table in a planning room and (hilariously of all) Mitchum delivers both his tiny scenes from a hospital bed, coated in skin cream.

When the action gets going though, it’s done pretty well with the po-faced, stodgy seriousness these war-time later 70s epics nearly all seemed to have in common. The stock footage does actually look pretty good and the drama of the battle – and the tactics – are captured fairly well. It’s intermixed with some real ships and all scored with a great deal of punch by John Williams. It’s all really B-movie, TV-movie-of-the-week stuff but it’s also far from obviously flag-waving either, instead doing its best to be even-handed and even a little bit critical. You’ll learn what happened and also have a bit of fun into the bargain.

Rashomon (1950)

Rashomon: “Everybody Lies” – Gregory House would love this film

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshiro Mifune (Tajōmaru, the Bandit), Machiko Kyō (The Samurai’s Wife), Masayuki Mori (The Samurai), Takashi Shimura (Woodcutter), Minoru Chiaki (Priest), Kichijiro Ueda (Commoner), Noriko Honma (Miko), Daisuke Katō (Policeman)

Rashomon is one of those films that Stuart Galbraith described everyone as “knowing it even if they haven’t seen it”. Its structure of unreliable narrators telling different versions of the same story has been employed on almost every single recurring drama that has been screened since its making. You’ve seen the Rashomon story, even if you’ve never seen the film.

In the rainy (no-one works with rain visually better than Kurosawa by the way) countryside, at an abandoned house (it’s called Rashomon, so even the title doesn’t really mean anything to the story) a Priest, a Woodcutter and a Commoner discuss a recent crime in the forest. A bandit, a samurai and his wife all met in the forest. The Samurai was killed. In the investigation, the Bandit, the Wife and the Samurai (via the Medium, imagine if Morse could call on her!) all tell different versions of the story, as does a surprise witness to the crime. Which story was true? Or were they all lies?

One of the main differences watching the original Rashomon now is that we have become so used to the concept of multiple versions of the same story being told that we expect a final answer to be presented. Most often now, the final version of the story is the true version and it allows us to understand for ourselves what was true and what was not in the other versions in the story. This is not the case here: there is no answer. The viewer will never know what happened in the glade: we are in the same position as a jury at a trial – we are presented with four compromised, conflicting stories and we need to select for ourselves what (and who) we choose to believe. The camera is as much of an unreliable narrator as the actual storytellers in the film.

Imagine what a, for want of a better word, head-f*ck this must have been back in the 1950s. They’d never seen anything like it before in a film. Characters might lie, but generally the camera never did. This was the time of Hays Code America, where criminals never got away with it, murderers were always revealed in the final frame and justice prevailed. Rashomon is nothing like this: there is no truth, just a series of lies or obfuscations, with the final story potentially as compromised as the rest. In a world where even a character as likeable as Alec Guinness’ in The Lavender Hill Mob has to end the film being hauled off to jail in chains, it must have been unsettling. People must have felt like the Priest does in the film: “Who can I trust? Where is goodness in this world?”

Of course, many theories have sprung up about what is going on here and what the actual story is – some theories place a lot of emphasis on the importance of the knife (Kurosawa indeed lets the camera linger strikingly on this knife, embedded in the ground, in version 1). Even the actors on set allegedly bugged Kurosawa for the solution – but the film isn’t about this. It’s about the lies we tell, and maybe why we tell them, not about the truth. The camera doesn’t even allow us to see the body (except from its POV) so we can’t even make a decision ourselves on the nature of the wounds to help us choose between the two possible murder weapons. The truth is effectively not even a character.

So Rashomon is a revolution in narrative terms – but is it good? David Thomson, in writing on Rashomon, pointed out that the device would work better in a story where everyone believed they were telling the truth. I have to say I think he is right. In fact, that is what I had expected – subtle variations in telling, or in delivery of lines, slight twists from story to story. Each story through is actually pretty much completely different (versions 1 and 4 are the closest to each other, but 2 and 3 are totally different) and that does rather rob the story of some depth. If everyone is just lying because they need or want to, that robs the idea of some strength. Anyone can make something up – but none of us can recall perfectly a moment and what everyone involved in that moment could be doing. A film that reflected on that would really have something to say – by removing this idea, I felt a little bit cheated. This might be tied into the modern expectation of there being some sort of mystery to solve here, but I genuinely think that’s a structure that works better and is more satisfying narratively – probably why that way of telling the story is more common today.

Away from the narrative through, Rashomon is the sort of technically assured, inventive film that’s technique has now been so absorbed into our visual language that we actually don’t notice it any more. But before this film, the sort of revolving tracking shots following the characters around the forest had never been attempted before. The shots looking up towards the sun, showing the light breaking through the leaves, had been thought impossible. Even the fact that the whole thing is shot outside is ambitious. The effect of the rain thundering down on the ruined house throughout the framing device is brilliantly done (apparently the water was dyed black so it showed up on the camera), perfectly reflecting the ambivalent mood of the men discussing the case.

Throughout the film, Kurosawa directs with a visual flair that roots the camera as a key player in the telling of the stories. Shots are cunningly arranged between versions to allow contrast and comparison, with the camera placed in subjective positions rather than objective ones, meaning we “see” in the stories only what the person telling the story would choose us to see. It feels very modern – and watching it you can see why many Japanese cinema aficionados moan about Kurosawa being acclaimed in the West primarily because he has had the most influence on Western film making because in turn he was very culturally influenced by Western film making in the first place. I’m no expert on Japanese film-making (like most people I’m largely limited to Kurosawa), but heck it’s pretty clear that he’s a master film maker.

The performances in the film have a high blown intensity about them that should totter the film into silliness but somehow don’t. Toshiro Mifune, objectively, overacts wildly but he’s such a gifted performer that it becomes a magnetic animalism, a sort of eyeball-searing dynamism. Kyō’s performance is perhaps a little too much, but its wildness and nerveless intensity gradually work within the story. Shimura, Chiaki and Ueda are terrific as the homespun average-Joes discussing the case.

Kurosawa’s Rashomon is an impressive technical and narrative accomplishment of its time, but it can never have the same impact when we watch it today, because it’s been integrated so completely into our story-telling and visual language, that watching it now you find it slightly hard to see what all the fuss was about in 1951. Watching it from a modern perspective, you can see elements of the film’s narrative that could have been done more effectively, and you wonder if it’s perhaps more of a short con played on the audience that works very well than a classic – but it is the first time anything like it was ever attempted, and for that reason, if for no other, it will live on in film history.