Kurai Tsuki
15th May 2004, 05:37
[It's not the best thing I've written but it's also not the worst.]
There are few actors who can capture both the good and evil qualities of human nature in their varying roles, yet this seems to have been the accomplishment of the late Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. It would seem that he could move seamlessly from playing a bandit or an overly aggressive fighter to an honorable samurai, a shogun or even a World War 2 military commander. Throughout his career he had managed to take different types of roles and at the same time avoid being typecast as an actor for a particular type of character or, admittedly to a much lesser extent, a different type of film.
The acclaimed Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa, who cast Mifune in many of his films, has had this to say about the actor;
Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world. It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three. The speed of his movements was such that he said in a single action what took ordinary actors three separate movements to express. He put forth everything directly and boldly, and his sense of timing was the keenest I had ever seen in a Japanese actor. And yet with all his quickness, he also had surprisingly fine sensibilities.
As for his personal interests, his avocations are horseback riding, shooting and swordplay. His favorite foods are Chinese cuisine and Japanese sweets. And some of his favorite drinks are beer, whiskey and wine.
With such skill it would seem that he had been preparing since his youth for such a career, but in fact his youth and family would give no hint of it. Toshiro Mifune was born in the Shantung province of Japanese occupied China in the town of Tsingtao on April 1, 1920 to Japanese parents, and he grew up in Manchuria, China. He was the first son of Tokuzo Mifune, who was a photo studio manager. In 1925, his family moved to Delian, China, where his father set up his own photo studio, called Star Photo Studio. In 1934, he graduated from Delian Junior High School, and then graduated from high school at 18.
Only two years later, at age 20, Mifune was drafted and joined the seventh flying squad of the Manchuria Imperial Army Air Force. Because of his experience in working with cameras, he was assigned to the photograph department and was put in charge of aerial photography. He faced the end of the war in 1945 at a kamikaze base to which he was transferred earlier. Mifune wrote about his experiences in the military in his autobiography;
There I was, a naive young man just turned twenty, the age when everyone went into the army, called up for active duty with one of those formal conscription notices inscribed on red paper. I left home and family reluctantly, not knowing if I would ever see my parents again and anxious at the thought of going off to kill people. Amid the stifling stench of leather, sweat, grease, and that pungent odor peculiar to men, I and the other bewildered young recruits were stirred up to blood lust. What a nightmare! Shuffled back and forth, first north then south, I lived that desperate soldier's life for six years. These big rough laborer's hands of mine are my unwanted souvenirs of that time.
After the war, in September of 1945, Mifune was repatriated to Japan with his family, but when he arrived in Japan he had no particular skills, only a high school certificate. He moved to Tokyo in search of work and found that most of the city was left in ruin after the bombing during the war. He found no work and had to stay with an old army friend during his period of unemployment, which would last until the following spring. He submitted a resume for photography assistant’s job to the Toho movie studio, but this resume was accidentally received as an application for this studio’s, New Face talent hunt. And so he went to the studio for an interview but he was unknowingly walking into an audition, and won the studio’s talent contest.
Toshiro Mifune had his film debut in 1947 in the movie, The New Age of Fools and got his second role in To the End of the Silver-Capped Mountains, where he played a postwar gangster. He was then cast in a film by director Akira Kurosawa in another gangster role, the film was called Drunken Angel. And since the making of this film, Mifune’s name and career have been linked with Kurosawa’s. He would appear in 16 of his films, and the relationship would last until 1965 with the making of Red Beard.
In 1949 Mifune was cast by Kurosawa in his movie, Stray Dog, as a detective who sets out to reclaim his stolen gun, as well as seek out a killer. This film was meant to be a look at post-war life in Tokyo, and was important to the development of Japanese cinema, and the career of Kurosawa himself.
It was in his fifth film with Kurosawa that Mifune would gain international fame. This was a movie based on the classic Japanese short story, Rashomon, by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. In the film version of 1950, Mifune played the bandit Tajomaru. This informal study of human nature and truth would also be Kurosawa’s first international success; it won and Oscar as the best foreign film.
It was also in 1950 that Mifune got married to Sachiko Yoshimine, who had also been an actress for the Toho film company.
In 1954, Kurosawa cast Mifune in Seven Samurai. This would become one of the most famous works for both of them, and would even be remade into the western movie, The Magnificent Seven. In this film, a sixteenth century Japanese village hires seven professional fighters to defend it; the movie would become known both for its humanity and its powerful action sequences. Mifune in this film plays a character that is obviously mentally unstable, but insists on following the six samurai hired to help the village, and helping to protect it himself.
In 1956, Mifune was cast in the role of the legendary Japanese samurai, Musashi Miyamoto, which would become known as the Samurai Trilogy.
Akira Kurosawa again worked with Mifune in 1958 and cast him in the film, The Hidden Fortress. In this movie, a princess and general (Mifune) must make a dangerous journey to their home territory while carrying treasure. They are helped only by two bumbling men who seem more interested in escaping with their share of the gold. This comedy adventure would become the inspiration for George Lucas’ Star Wars Trilogy, as he has acknowledged.
In 1961, Kurosawa cast Mifune in the lead role in his film, Yojimbo. He plays a samurai in a town with two warring factions, and keeps getting hired by opposing sides. In the end, both factions annihilate each other. This film was remade into the western movie Fistful of Dollars, and later as Last Man Standing. Mifune won the Best Actor award at the Venice film festival for his role in this movie. In 1962, Mifune was cast in the sequel to this film, Sanjuro, where his character helps nine bumbling younger warriors expose corruption among the clan elders of their town.
The eight films that I’ve mentioned were the most famous films that Toshiro Mifune starred in, but by no means is his career as an actor limited to them. After breaking with Akira Kurosawa in the 1960’s, Mifune began to turn increasingly to television work and foreign films. But in these movies his level of acting quality would never reach the point where it was when he worked with Kurosawa; he has even said that it was only with Kurosawa that he has done anything he could be proud of as an actor.
The first of these foreign film appearances was actually in a Mexican movie called El Hombre importante. Other examples of these films would include, Hell in the Pacific and Tora Tora Tora in 1969, Red Sun in 1971, Paper Tiger in 1975, Midway in 1976 and the miniseries, Shogun, in 1980; along with Richard Chamberlain, he won an Emmy award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series. But even though he was starring in English speaking movies, he never actually learned to speak English. He would simply learn his lines by the sounds of the words.
It was in the 1990s that Mifune began having heart troubles that would eventually lead to his death. In 1992 he collapsed from heart infraction and he died in 1997 on Christmas Eve as a result of multiple organ failures. The funeral service was held for him at Aoyama Funeral Hall in Tokyo; it was a joint funeral of Toho, Kurosawa Production, and Mifune Production.
There are few actors who can capture both the good and evil qualities of human nature in their varying roles, yet this seems to have been the accomplishment of the late Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. It would seem that he could move seamlessly from playing a bandit or an overly aggressive fighter to an honorable samurai, a shogun or even a World War 2 military commander. Throughout his career he had managed to take different types of roles and at the same time avoid being typecast as an actor for a particular type of character or, admittedly to a much lesser extent, a different type of film.
The acclaimed Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa, who cast Mifune in many of his films, has had this to say about the actor;
Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world. It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three. The speed of his movements was such that he said in a single action what took ordinary actors three separate movements to express. He put forth everything directly and boldly, and his sense of timing was the keenest I had ever seen in a Japanese actor. And yet with all his quickness, he also had surprisingly fine sensibilities.
As for his personal interests, his avocations are horseback riding, shooting and swordplay. His favorite foods are Chinese cuisine and Japanese sweets. And some of his favorite drinks are beer, whiskey and wine.
With such skill it would seem that he had been preparing since his youth for such a career, but in fact his youth and family would give no hint of it. Toshiro Mifune was born in the Shantung province of Japanese occupied China in the town of Tsingtao on April 1, 1920 to Japanese parents, and he grew up in Manchuria, China. He was the first son of Tokuzo Mifune, who was a photo studio manager. In 1925, his family moved to Delian, China, where his father set up his own photo studio, called Star Photo Studio. In 1934, he graduated from Delian Junior High School, and then graduated from high school at 18.
Only two years later, at age 20, Mifune was drafted and joined the seventh flying squad of the Manchuria Imperial Army Air Force. Because of his experience in working with cameras, he was assigned to the photograph department and was put in charge of aerial photography. He faced the end of the war in 1945 at a kamikaze base to which he was transferred earlier. Mifune wrote about his experiences in the military in his autobiography;
There I was, a naive young man just turned twenty, the age when everyone went into the army, called up for active duty with one of those formal conscription notices inscribed on red paper. I left home and family reluctantly, not knowing if I would ever see my parents again and anxious at the thought of going off to kill people. Amid the stifling stench of leather, sweat, grease, and that pungent odor peculiar to men, I and the other bewildered young recruits were stirred up to blood lust. What a nightmare! Shuffled back and forth, first north then south, I lived that desperate soldier's life for six years. These big rough laborer's hands of mine are my unwanted souvenirs of that time.
After the war, in September of 1945, Mifune was repatriated to Japan with his family, but when he arrived in Japan he had no particular skills, only a high school certificate. He moved to Tokyo in search of work and found that most of the city was left in ruin after the bombing during the war. He found no work and had to stay with an old army friend during his period of unemployment, which would last until the following spring. He submitted a resume for photography assistant’s job to the Toho movie studio, but this resume was accidentally received as an application for this studio’s, New Face talent hunt. And so he went to the studio for an interview but he was unknowingly walking into an audition, and won the studio’s talent contest.
Toshiro Mifune had his film debut in 1947 in the movie, The New Age of Fools and got his second role in To the End of the Silver-Capped Mountains, where he played a postwar gangster. He was then cast in a film by director Akira Kurosawa in another gangster role, the film was called Drunken Angel. And since the making of this film, Mifune’s name and career have been linked with Kurosawa’s. He would appear in 16 of his films, and the relationship would last until 1965 with the making of Red Beard.
In 1949 Mifune was cast by Kurosawa in his movie, Stray Dog, as a detective who sets out to reclaim his stolen gun, as well as seek out a killer. This film was meant to be a look at post-war life in Tokyo, and was important to the development of Japanese cinema, and the career of Kurosawa himself.
It was in his fifth film with Kurosawa that Mifune would gain international fame. This was a movie based on the classic Japanese short story, Rashomon, by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. In the film version of 1950, Mifune played the bandit Tajomaru. This informal study of human nature and truth would also be Kurosawa’s first international success; it won and Oscar as the best foreign film.
It was also in 1950 that Mifune got married to Sachiko Yoshimine, who had also been an actress for the Toho film company.
In 1954, Kurosawa cast Mifune in Seven Samurai. This would become one of the most famous works for both of them, and would even be remade into the western movie, The Magnificent Seven. In this film, a sixteenth century Japanese village hires seven professional fighters to defend it; the movie would become known both for its humanity and its powerful action sequences. Mifune in this film plays a character that is obviously mentally unstable, but insists on following the six samurai hired to help the village, and helping to protect it himself.
In 1956, Mifune was cast in the role of the legendary Japanese samurai, Musashi Miyamoto, which would become known as the Samurai Trilogy.
Akira Kurosawa again worked with Mifune in 1958 and cast him in the film, The Hidden Fortress. In this movie, a princess and general (Mifune) must make a dangerous journey to their home territory while carrying treasure. They are helped only by two bumbling men who seem more interested in escaping with their share of the gold. This comedy adventure would become the inspiration for George Lucas’ Star Wars Trilogy, as he has acknowledged.
In 1961, Kurosawa cast Mifune in the lead role in his film, Yojimbo. He plays a samurai in a town with two warring factions, and keeps getting hired by opposing sides. In the end, both factions annihilate each other. This film was remade into the western movie Fistful of Dollars, and later as Last Man Standing. Mifune won the Best Actor award at the Venice film festival for his role in this movie. In 1962, Mifune was cast in the sequel to this film, Sanjuro, where his character helps nine bumbling younger warriors expose corruption among the clan elders of their town.
The eight films that I’ve mentioned were the most famous films that Toshiro Mifune starred in, but by no means is his career as an actor limited to them. After breaking with Akira Kurosawa in the 1960’s, Mifune began to turn increasingly to television work and foreign films. But in these movies his level of acting quality would never reach the point where it was when he worked with Kurosawa; he has even said that it was only with Kurosawa that he has done anything he could be proud of as an actor.
The first of these foreign film appearances was actually in a Mexican movie called El Hombre importante. Other examples of these films would include, Hell in the Pacific and Tora Tora Tora in 1969, Red Sun in 1971, Paper Tiger in 1975, Midway in 1976 and the miniseries, Shogun, in 1980; along with Richard Chamberlain, he won an Emmy award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series. But even though he was starring in English speaking movies, he never actually learned to speak English. He would simply learn his lines by the sounds of the words.
It was in the 1990s that Mifune began having heart troubles that would eventually lead to his death. In 1992 he collapsed from heart infraction and he died in 1997 on Christmas Eve as a result of multiple organ failures. The funeral service was held for him at Aoyama Funeral Hall in Tokyo; it was a joint funeral of Toho, Kurosawa Production, and Mifune Production.