Japan and the Japanese

Jan 8, 1996 — Dodes’ka-den was made at a low point in Akira Kurosawa’s long career-perhaps the lowest that the director has ever known. In the preface of the filmmaker’s autobiography, critic and translator Audie Bock reports that Kurosawa’s commercial prospects became bleak in...

Nov 19, 1989 — After finishing High and Low (1963), director Akira Kurosawa recalls, “I started looking around for something else to do and quite by accident picked up [the novel] Red Beard by Shugoro Yamamoto. At first I thought it would make a...

May 24, 2017 — Cannes kicked off the 1980s with a Palme d’Or win for a giant of Japanese cinema entering the final stages of his career. Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (the title of which literally translates as “shadow warrior”) follows a small-time thief who...

Nov 18, 2016 — For Film Comment, Marc Walkow surveys the career of director Tomu Uchida, currently the subject of a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. Like many commercial Japanese directors of his era, Uchida has long been underappreciated in the West,...

Jun 30, 2011 — Kurosawa’s films are about to get even more graphic. The Criterion Collection and the pop-up art gallery Tr!ckster are joining forces Friday, July 22, for a one-night-only celebration called A Tribute to the Films of Akira Kurosawa. Curated by our own Eric...

Nov 9, 2008 — Ken Ogata was a brave and talented actor. He took chances in a system that discouraged risk taking. I had been told that no reputable Japanese actor would star in Mishima because of the controversy surrounding Mishima and the notion...

Oct 24, 2005 — Kihachi Okamoto’s dynamic, intricately madcap movie is a multitoned send-up of samurai film lore.

Jul 21, 1998 — Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai Trilogy, of which this release is the first part, was adapted from Eiji Yoshikawa’s epic novel Musashi Miyamoto, which has been called Japan’s Gone with the Wind. The comparison is valid, for the tale of the medieval...

Apr 17, 2019 — Showcasing new work by filmmakers at the forefront of nonfiction and hybrid cinema, this year’s edition also pays tribute to three vital groundbreakers.

May 30, 2019 — The star of classics directed by Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Kinugasa, Ozu, Ichikawa, and Teshigahara was ninety-five.