His films put Japanese cinema on the map. He set the standard for action genre films everywhere. His work inspired many filmmakers in the west and raised many unknown Japanese Actors to fame. Now he will be known only because his work is to be repeated, yet again.
Akira Kurosawa (1910-98, Tokyo) was and remains to this day one of the most famous directors in film history. From humble beginnings in a western art school, he began his career as a painter. Fortunately for the film world he moved on to become a filmmaker in 1936 and after several small positions on various film sets, he made his debut as a director in 1943 with his martial arts, action epic Sanshiro Sugata.
However he faced a serious problem that was troubling many Japanese directors at that time (apart from the aftermath of the war and depression). Although popular within its own borders, Japanese cinema and to a large extent Japanese society, was unknown to the west and few people today have heard of Kurosawa’s earlier work as a result. Two other Japanese film makers of the time – Kenji Mizoguchi (1898-1956, Tokyo) and Yasujiro Ozu (1903-63, Tokyo) – had been making films for 20 years before Kurosawa was even commissioned for assistant director and they themselves had no following outside of Japan. How then, did they become so recognizable today? They owe their reputations to Kurosawa and one of his most famous films Rashomon (1950). Rashomon is the tale of a murder and how the stories of 4 people – a woodcutter, a bandit, a woman and a ghost – must be pieced together to discover the truth. It embodies Kurosawa’s personal style and was a keen message on lies and truth. Perhaps it was these traits that resulted in this film earning the Golden Lion award from the Venice Film Festival in 1951, the highest and most prestigious award that could be given at this festival even today. The result was that Rashomon was taken up for distribution by one of Hollywood’s leading film companies of the day, RKO Studios, for distribution and it was this more than anything that resulted in Kurosawa and Japanese cinema finally gaining a foot hold in the west and the big director himself becoming a phenomenon in the film world to date.
As if that wasn’t enough, Rashomon was the first time Kurosawa would work with the then unknown actor Toshiro Mifune, with whom Kurosawa would have a long and colorful career in the film industry. Out of the 30 films that Kurosawa directed over his career, Toshiro Mifune was to star in over half of them. Indeed Mifune himself would go on to be one of the most famous actors in the Japanese film industry, and his success is due in no small part to Akira Kurosawa and his debut with Rashomon.
Since 1951 and the Venice Film Festival, Kurosawa went on to create film after film, and his choice of subject varied widely. Whether he made satires of modern Japan (one of his most notable works of this genre being Hakuchi/The Idiot in 1951), Samurai action films known as Jidaigeki or period pieces (with stories such as Yojimbo in 1961) and he even made several films that were remakes of Shakespearean plays mixed with Japanese culture and history (such as Kumonosu jo/Throne of Blood which blended the works of both Japanese Noh theatre and Shakespeare’s Macbeth). His works were as varied as they were widely renown, but none profited more fame and glory for both film and director than the Chambara (another form of samurai genre) film Shichi-nin no Samurai/ Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954). The story revolves around a Japanese village in the late 1500’s that is threatened by a bandit attack, and so the villagers set off in search of wandering samurai to protect them, but with only three meals a day and the prospect of death to offer them, they have little hope of finding any. But they end up with 7 warriors (probably easy to guess form the title) and among them are the actors Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune, both of whom are renown for having worked closely in numerous Kurosawa films. The resulting epic is one of the most famous films both historically and globally, which to this day is still marked as the level by which all action films are set against. It had enormous appeal as both an art house and an action film and in spite of the fact that this was Kurosawa’s first attempt at making a samurai action film, it became the quintessential landmark that is now synonymous with ‘Akira Kurosawa’.
Kurosawa went on to continue making films for many years, working in various famous production companies in Japan (Such as Toho and Daiei Studios) and even worked for a few years in Hollywood. He eventually started his own production company, Kurosawa Production Company, in 1959 although this was short lived and closed down in 1965, which also marked the end of his working with Toshiro Mifune. As he continued making films, it was remarked that Kurosawa was one of the few directors who refused to move into color. Indeed the large part of his works remained in black and white until two of his later films: Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985). These two works saw not only the advent of a career in color, but in later years Kurosawa would often remark that Ran was his finest work (this idea is both supported and argued by his fans to this day).
Many of Kurosawa’s films became strongly influential to western filmmakers, who saw his works and sought to imitate them. Seven Samurai was eventually re-made by John Sturges into the 1960 cowboy film: The Magnificent Seven, along with 3 sequels all following the same story line (the sequels did not have the same popularity as the originals). But more than this, Kurosawa’s works were closely followed by 2 of Hollywood’s most famous filmmakers: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. One work of Kurosawa’s films in particular influenced these two, called Kakushi Toride no San-Akunin/The Hidden Fortress (1958). In this film, two lonely farmers are hired to help a princess and her knight (samurai technically) carry their gold and escape from an evil empire and avoid the clutches of a scarred general. Sound familiar? Yes, The Hidden Fortress became one of the major influences for Lucas and Spielberg to create the original space opera Star Wars (1977). Although the plot line various ever so slightly (from Samurai to Space stations) Lucas and Spielberg imitated the basic ideas they saw in The Hidden Fortress and went on to create a cult classic that not only made Lucas famous (Spielberg was already known thanks to The Godfather and various other works) but became another of the most famous films of all time. The Hidden Fortress itself was one of Kurosawa’s most successful Jidaigeki films, not least because it was his first work in the new widescreen film format. It encompassed many of his specific filmmaking styles and was intended as a social commentary on greed and power. Hidden Fortress is now considered to be a very lightweight film as far as Kurosawa’s career in concerned and is mostly known only because of its influence for Star Wars.
Akira Kurosawa went on making films well into his 80’s and they continued to be as varied as his earlier works. However after an accident in 1995 his health and body began to decline and towards the end of his life, he was mostly bed ridden. He died of a stroke in Tokyo on September 6th 1998, aged 88, leaving behind him one of the most famous careers in Japanese cinema, and indeed filmmaking history.
Unfortunately, soon he may become known as being the Director of another original. In November 2011, it was announced that the early stages of production have begun on a remake of Kurosawa’s famous work Seven Samurai, and is due to be released in 2014. A relatively unknown, American director (Scott Mann, The Tournament) will direct this remake, the story of which has been edited by a writer known for making Kung-fu genre screenplays (John Fusco, Forbidden Kingdom), and which according to sources, will be set in Northern Thailand where a small village recruits 7 ex-paramilitary soldiers to protect them. The thought of this is enough to make one want to gag and it is almost certain that Kurosawa is turning in his grave.
Although Seven Samurai has already been remade (with both The Magnificent Seven in 1960 and an animated television series Samurai 7 2004), the powers of the film world have decided to do it again and by the sounds of it, they intend to mock Kurosawa’s legacy. The first Magnificent Seven film was more than enough of a remake; its three sequels becoming no less than a waste of film. And yes, The Magnificent Seven was indeed a very entertaining adaptation, and Samurai 7 also closely embodied many of Kurosawa’s Ideals when he set out to make the original. So far there is very little to suggest that this remake will have any of those qualities or the same level of entertainment as its predecessors.
The fact that for the remake, Kurosawa’s original story is being edited and rewritten by a Kung-fu writer is enough to fill one with dread, as it promises the entertaining and famous storyline will be replaced by flashy Kung-fu fighting. When that is mixed with the fact that the director is known only for shorts and television series, and that the original sword fighting action promises to be replaced by guns and explosions, the prospect of The Seven Samurai 2014 promises to be nothing more than another shoddy remake for which Hollywood is rapidly becoming known. One of the great pillars of Kurosawa’s will no doubt be marred by this sham of a replica. Not that there is anything wrong with Thailand, but the title would normally suggest that Japan would be the place of choice for a Samurai film.
That is not the way to honor the career of a man who helped shaped the film culture of an entire country. Akira Kurosawa was a great director, who made great films. He deserves better than to have his most famous work copied into rubbish.
