Akira Kurosawa

[krakatoan]

What do you think of him?
What is his best work?

I'm just learing about him and planning to watch some of his movies...

[NorthStarRepublicML]

They are all good films ....

my favorites have to be:

1)Seven Samurai

2) Throne of Blood (based on Macbeth)

3) Yojimbo

and 4) Dreams

[coda]

Rashomon is the film he's best known for.. and maybe his best film.

About a rape and murder and the witnesses having differing viewpoints.

spoilers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon_(film)

[MarxSchmarx]

What do you think of him?

He's got some awesome non-too-subtle lefty jabs scattered in his films. Seven Samurai is replete with it. So is, to a lesser extent, Red Beard


What is his best work?

Ikiru.

[fabiansocialist]

I've only seen "Ran," "The Seven Samurai," and "Rashomon." I liked "Ran" best (an adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear," with some haunting music from Mahler).

[praxis1966]

Rashomon is by far my favorite film by him; it's his most famous for good reason. It's Kurosawa's examination of the nature of truth, not just perspective. He's basically saying, using a woodland rape and murder in a medieval Japan period piece, that the only ultimate truth is that there isn't one. Nevermind that some of the cinematography is absolutely groundbreaking (ie the swinging camera shots) considering the movie was released in 1950.

You might also check out some of Clint Eastwood's films from his 'Spaghetti Western' period. Alot of them are based on Kurosawa's work. For example, The Magnificent Seven is based on Seven Samurai. Pretty good examples of how Hollywood's destruction of perfectly good films has been going on since forever.

Edit: If you can get ahold of the stuff of his that's been restored by Criterion, do so. Not only are they wonderfully remastered, but they have alot of extras on the DVD versions that are really interesting.

[NorthStarRepublicML]

just watched the Bruce Willis film Last Man Standing, which is directed by Walter Hill and gives writing credit to Akira Kurosawa as it was based upon Yojimbo ....

I thought it was pretty good but apparently it isn't rated very well by critics ....

[krakatoan]

I just watchED Seven Samurai, it was really cool. The shots were something I have never seen in a movie that old. The scene where the samurai that was the son of a farmer (I can't remember his name, but it started with a "K") was running in the woods, and the camera runs along for example. It was very entertaining, and although I thought some of the farmers overeacted at first, I began to feel angry at their cowardly attitude eventually. I ended up hating the farmer with the samurai spear who always cried.

[NorthStarRepublicML]

If you can get ahold of the stuff of his that's been restored by Criterion, do so. Not only are they wonderfully remastered, but they have alot of extras on the DVD versions that are really interesting.

agreed, i have two versions of Seven Samurai ... one is a standard edition which has fuzzy sound and hard to read subtitles .... the criterion collection ones suffers from none of those problems .... although they are bit more expensive it is worth it