Akira Kurosawa News, Information and Discussion
News archive for 2007
Hidden Fortress remake poster and website
21 December, 2007 (3 comments)The first poster for the Shinji Higuchi directed remake of The Hidden Fortress, set for release in Japan on May 10, 2008, has been posted online. As a fresh, and More...
Akira Kurosawa: Interviews published
11 December, 2007 (7 comments)University Press of Mississippi’s book Akira Kurosawa: Interviews has been published and is now available for purchase. The listed retail price is $20, but Amazon.com currently sells the 224 page More...
Japan Times review of Morita’s Sanjuro
9 December, 2007Japan Times has a review of Tsubaki Sanjuro by Mark Schilling. Schilling gives the movie 3 out of 5 stars, summing it up with: ‘A four-word review of “Tsubaki Sanjuro” More...
Akira Kurosawa, the Band
4 December, 2007 (1 comment)Apparently, there is a metal band that goes by the name Akira Kurosawa. Hailing from Victoria, Australia, they have a MySpace page with three songs and two YouTube live videos More...
Bringing back the dead (oddities in the forums)
3 December, 2007Our member Sanjuro mentioned that some of the older posts he had written had not showed up on the forums at all. He actually told me about this earlier — More...
Tsubaki Sanjuro: first review
2 December, 2007 (7 comments)Yoshimitsu Morita’s remake of Sanjuro opened in Japan yesterday, and Daily Yomiuri online has already posted a review. As the title of the review (”Kurosawa remake avoids worst scenario”) suggests, More...
Amazon.com exclusive Kurosawa collection
29 November, 2007 (4 comments)Thanks to a tip from a reader (whose name I’m not all that certain about, but I’d guess either “Christopher” or “Julie”!), I’ve found out that Amazon.com now lists a More...
Jeremy’s report on Sanjuro advertising
29 November, 2007 (1 comment)Just a quick note for those who don’t read the comments regularly: Jeremy has just got back from Japan, and has described to us what is going on with the Sanjuro (remake) advertising. Take a look here.
Review: “Ran”, the board game
19 November, 2007 (5 comments)Board gaming is a hobby that has always been dear to me. My interest in the field is wide, ranging from simple and straightforward “social” games such as the relatively More...
DVD Beaver’s review of Drunken Angel
14 November, 2007The guys over at DVD Beaver have taken a look at the new Drunken Angel from Criterion. They compare the print to BFI’s Region 2 release, and note that the More...
DVD Talk reviews Drunken Angel
14 November, 2007 (3 comments)Stuart Galbraith IV has written yet another excellent review of a Kurosawa DVD for DVD Talk, this time for the to-be-released Drunken Angel by Criterion. His assessment of Criterion’s latest More...
E-mail features
1 November, 2007Just a short note to let you know that I’ve added two new functions to the website. Both of them have to do with e-mails. 1. You can now subscribe More...
Senkichi Taniguchi dies at 95
31 October, 2007Senkichi Taniguchi has died of aspiration pneumonia in a hospital in Tokyo. In the 1940s and 50s the director filmed a number of Kurosawa penned scripts, co-wrote Kurosawa’s own The More...
Variety on “The Hidden Fortress” remake
30 October, 2007 (2 comments)Variety has an article about the new Hidden Fortress remake that was announced by Toho. The article adds the following to what we already know: In a departure from the More...
“Postwar Kurosawa” in January
29 October, 2007I just heard back from Criterion, and according to them January 15 2008 is the official release date for the Postwar Kurosawa box set that I reported about a couple of days ago. So, not quite yet in November or December, as I had calculated.
An Akira Kurosawa remake roundup
29 October, 2007 (12 comments)Since many of you can’t probably keep up with all the Kurosawa remakes that are happening at the moment, I decided to compile a list of titles in planning or More...
‘The Hidden Fortress’ remake
29 October, 2007 (2 comments)Tokyo Graph reports that a remake of The Hidden Fortress is on its way. Directed by the special effects specialist turned director Shinji Higuchi, the movie will star Jun Matsumoto, More...
Postwar Kurosawa Collection from Criterion’s Eclipse
25 October, 2007 (9 comments)It has been announced that Criterion, as part of its new Eclipse series, is releasing a Kurosawa collection that gathers some of the director’s less available works from the immediate More...
Madadayo, The Quiet Duel from Yume Pictures
2 October, 2007 (3 comments)Yume Pictures has released a Region 2 DVD of Madadayo. This is very good news for those in Europe, as there has so far been no viable option for an More...
A Hitachi Commercial with Akira Kurosawa
30 September, 2007A new YouTube video with Kurosawa has appeared online. In it, shots of Kurosawa working on film sets are used to sell a Hitachi product (does anyone know what, exactly?). More...
Seventh Samurai from the Weinsteins?
27 September, 2007 (1 comment)While trying to uncover more information about Robert Redford’s rumoured Against All Enemies project, I stumbled upon yet another bit of information about the rumoured Seven Samurai remake that the More...
Tokyo court decides Kurosawa still under copyright
17 September, 2007In April this year Toho launched a lawsuit against Cosmo Contents, which had been selling cheap DVDs of Akira Kurosawa’s early films in Japan under the assumption that they were More...
Chris Marker exhibition in New York
16 September, 2007Those in New York may be interested in Chris Marker: Staring Back, an exhibition of almost two hundred photographs taken by the French filmmaker Chris Marker, best known for Kurosawa fans for his 1985 documentary “A.K.”. According to a Trigger Magazine review, the exhibition also features a portrait (portraits?) of Akira Kurosawa.
Criterion opens a webshop
6 September, 2007 (2 comments)Criterion, who are obviously well known to Kurosawa fans for their quality DVD releases, have opened a webshop on their website at Criterion.com. The prices seem ok, although it is always advisable to shop around before ordering online.
Archive.org’s Sanshiro Sugata
26 August, 2007 (1 comment)The Internet Archive has added Sanshiro Sugata to their collection. Just like earlier on with Rashomon, the film is now downloadable in a few different formats, or can be watched in a browser. I have not yet had the time to check the quality of their release.
‘Drunken Angel’ by Criterion in November
16 August, 2007 (9 comments)Criterion has set November as a release date for a Drunken Angel DVD. Newly digitally restored, the film comes with a 30-minute commentary by Donald Richie, a 30-minute “making of” More...
Weinsteins launch an Asian film fund - Seven Samurai remake mentioned
7 August, 2007 (2 comments)Just when you thought that all those rumours about the planned Seven Samurai remake had died down and disappeared, Reuters writes that the Weinstein Company has launched a $285 million More...
Remake of “High and Low” in the works
2 August, 2007This apparently broke almost a month ago, but somehow it went past my radar — a TV remake of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku) is in More...
First teaser trailer for the Tsubaki Sanjuro remake
29 July, 2007 (5 comments)The first teaser trailer for the new remake of Tsubaki Sanjuro has been made available online. The 30 second clip shows a few scenes that are familiar from Kurosawa’s original. More...
Akira Kurosawa and a 1955 alternate history
16 July, 2007 (1 comment)Someone at the soc.history.what-if newsgroup by the name of Sydney Webb has posted a “what if” scenario on Kurosawa in 1955, the point (if any) of which I don’t quite More...
3rd Tsubaki Sanjuro poster
13 July, 2007 (1 comment)The official website for the forthcoming Japanese Tsubaki Sajuro remake has posted a third poster. This time the poster depicts Mutsuta’s wife and daughter on the background, with a somewhat Mifune-like expression on the lead actor Yuji Oda’s face. Whether he gets it right is up to you to decide… Once again, thanks for the heads-up go to Twitch.
Blogged: National cinemas (plus Yoshimoto)
10 July, 2007 (4 comments)At the Scopophilia part of his personal blog, Kikuchiyo, a globetrotting English teacher in Japan, has raised the question “what is national cinema” and what is it especially in the More...
Possible future Kurosawa releases in India
28 June, 2007The Indian film distributor Shemaroo Entertainment has announced the launch of a new cinema label concentrating on releases of world cinema classics. According to reports, the company has so far More...
Kurosawa poster wins in Tehran
28 June, 2007Swiss artist Ralph Schraivogel has won the 9th Tehran International Poster Biennial with a work titled “Akira Kurosawa”. Unfortunately, at this point a picture of the poster does not seem to be available online. Some of Schraivogel’s earlier works can, however, be seen here and here.
Herzog: Rashomon “has complete balance”
19 June, 2007 (3 comments)In this interview posted at YouTube, Werner Herzog describes Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon as a movie exceptional in that it “has complete balance”. Herzog’s idea of the “Ecstatic Truth” in cinema More...
Seven Samurai in the top 10 action films
18 June, 2007 (4 comments)Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai has landed a number 6 spot in Entertainment Weekly’s list of the very best action films. The movies were selected by the magazine staff. Based on a More...
Blogged: Ikiru teaches through the mimesis of learning
4 June, 2007 (1 comment)Marc Rebillet at the Classics Revisited blog has put forward the idea that Kurosawa’s Ikiru differs from the rest of his works in that it allows us to observe characters More...
Tsubaki Sanjuro poster #2
2 June, 2007 (4 comments)The second poster for Yoshimitsu Morita’s remake of Kurosawa’s Tsubaki Sanjuro has been made available on the movie’s official website. Here it is: A bigger version can be seen at the official site. As the poster points out, the film is to be released on December 1st. Thanks to Twitch for the heads-up.
Kurosawa documentary at the Internet Archive
27 May, 2007 (2 comments)There is a new (?) Kurosawa documentary at the Internet Archive, which can be viewed and downloaded here. Not much information is provided about the piece, apart from the text More...
Blogged: Killing in Tarkovsky and Kurosawa
25 May, 2007 (1 comment)There is a post comparing some scenes of killing in Tarkovsky and Kurosawa. I won’t go into details, as I’m travelling, and don’t really have much time on the computer at the moment. So, you will need to check out the post all by yourself.
Weinsteins to preserve Madadayo
24 May, 2007 (1 comment)The Weinstein Company has announced three new DVD labels with one of them, the Miriam Collection, being devoted to “restorations, prestige and foreign pics”. The first title to be released More...
YouTube: For Beautiful Movies
24 May, 2007 (5 comments)The Message from Akira Kurosawa: For Beautiful Movies has now been uploaded to YouTube in its entirety. I am not entirely sure what to make of this in terms of More...
Kei Kumai: 1930-2007
24 May, 2007Kei Kumai, who directed The Sea Is Watching from Kurosawa’s final script in 2002, has passed away. He was 77 years of age, and is perhaps best remembered outside of Japan for such movies as Sandakan No. 8 (1974), The Sea and Poison (1987) and The Death of a Tea Master (1989). The Sea of Watching remained his last movie.
Contents list for Akira Kurosawa: Interviews
21 May, 2007University Press of Mississippi has been kind enough to provide me a copy of the table of contents to be included in the Akira Kurosawa: Interviews book that I wrote More...
New Book — Akira Kurosawa: Interviews
20 May, 2007 (5 comments)In December 2007, University Press of Mississippi will publish a book titled Akira Kurosawa: Interviews. The 224-page book, available both in hard cover and paperback, will be made available as More...
Youtube: A Message from Akira Kurosawa
20 May, 2007Someone seems to have uploaded to Youtube two chapters from the A Message from Akira Kurosawa: For Beautiful Movies interview series that was done in the early 1990s. These are More...
Akira Kurosawa and the Cannes Film Festival
18 May, 2007 (1 comment)The 60th Cannes Film Festival has now screened the first films in this year’s competition, and I though that just like we did a couple of months ago with the More...
What do Ed Wood and Akira Kurosawa have in common?
17 May, 2007 (5 comments)Ed Wood and Akira Kurosawa are not necessarily a pair that one tends to think of together. With one commonly being called the “worst director of all time”, and the More...
‘Ikiru’ to be adapted on TV
10 May, 2007 (3 comments)The Japanese television network TV Asahi is reportedly currently filming a TV remake of Akira Kurosawa’s classic 1952 movie Ikiru. Production of the television drama, which stars the popular kabuki More...
A small update
4 May, 2007 (7 comments)In the past few weeks I have worked on both some new content as well as what I think is a slightly improved user interface for this website. I think More...
YouTube: A Yojimbo “trailer”
2 May, 2007 (3 comments)Someone over at YouTube has made a pretty good job at re-editing the Yojimbo trailer to reflect what it would most probably be like if it was made today. Take a look here. I somehow have the feeling, though, that the upcoming Sanjuro remake will be nothing like this.
Tsubaki Sanjuro poster
25 April, 2007 (5 comments)Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, here is the first Tsubaki Sanjuro poster for the Japanese remake that will open later this year: A bigger version can be seen More...
Hisao Kurosawa remarries
22 April, 2007According to news reports, Akira Kurosawa’s oldest son and the president of Kurosawa Productions, Hisao Kurosawa (61), was married today. This is Kurosawa’s second marriage. Akira Kurosawa News and Information wishes the Kurosawas all the best in their journey together.
A Dersu Uzala review
22 April, 2007There is a rather generic Dersu Uzala review, indeed almost a description, over at RussiaBlog.org. I’m posting a link here for completeness’ sake.
Seven Samurai seconded by the Japanese
21 April, 2007 (5 comments)In a recent online poll the Japanese DIMSDRIVE Research asked what domestic movies the Japanese participants would recommend to foreigners. Altogether 5,537 members answered the question, voting Seven Samurai the More...
“Kurosawa Gets It”
19 April, 2007 (2 comments)Grubby over at the blog Skreak! has written a short piece (or more like a thought) that briefly compares the concept of “living life” as portrayed in Ikiru and the More...
Blog Article: ‘The Bad Sleep Well’
18 April, 2007 (1 comment)Ben Nuckols at “The Ill-Informed Gadfly” has responded textually to Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well. For the blog article, see here.
A Kurosawa bio
18 April, 2007To mark the Akira Kurosawa Film Series currently screened in Cairo, Egypt, the Daily Star Egypt has published a short bio and intro to Kurosawa’s life and works. Perhaps it is more for those readers who are after an introduction to Kurosawa, than for our more regular visitors and contributors.
Youtube Kurosawa documentary
18 April, 2007 (4 comments)Youtube user forbesnation has put together a two-part documentary discussing “the Western influences and influence of legendary director Akira Kurosawa”. The work, which was made as a High School project, More...
Fuyuki Murakami passes away
16 April, 2007Fuyuki Murakami, who played a newspaperman in Kurosawa’s Ikiru, has passed away at the age of 95. Although the small role he had in Ikiru was his only role under Kurosawa, Murakami’s filmography is quite large and interesting due to his role as one of Toho’s many supporting actors. There is a rather good obituary at SciFi Japan.
Empire readers kind of dig Seven Samurai
8 April, 2007 (5 comments)Empire Magazine, which I find a useful source of information only because whatever movies they like I usually hate and vice versa, has polled 50,000 people to find out what More...
Another YouTube video on the Making of ‘Ran’
5 April, 2007Yet another somewhat cryptic message has been posted over at YouTube regarding the making-of footage shot during the filming of Kurosawa’s ‘Ran’. Do take a look.
More information about the Toho lawsuit
4 April, 2007 (1 comment)deconstruct notes at the forum that Variety has slightly more information about the reported lawsuit Toho launched on Monday against Cosmo Contents at the Tokyo District Court regarding the company’s More...
A shot analysis from Seven Samurai
2 April, 2007 (2 comments)Pacze Moj over at a blog called Critical Culture has posted a relatively good short analysis of some important shots from Seven Samurai. The comments there are also well worth the read!
Toho sues Cosmo Contents for selling DVDs of Kurosawa’s early works
2 April, 2007Ardent readers may remember an earlier post about pre-1953 Japanese films being in public domain at least in Japan. Thanks to a forum post by deconstruct (the forum is turning More...
Progressive Rock: The 7 Samurai - The Ultimate Epic
31 March, 2007 (8 comments)This has somehow slipped past my radar, but let it be known now that last October the music labels Colossus and Musea presented a progressive rock album called The 7 More...
Hitoshi Ueki dies
29 March, 2007 (1 comment)Japanese comedian Hitoshi Ueki passed away on Tuesday at the age of 80. The cause of his death was a heart failure. Although well known across Japan, Ueki is less More...
Introducing the Akira Kurosawa Discussion Forums
29 March, 2007 (6 comments)If you glimpse at the website menu, you will notice that there is a new link as the very rightmost entry on the list. It is titled “Forums“, and as More...
Something Like an Update
28 March, 2007 (10 comments)I have finished an update regarding the website design. Now, you may ask “why bother?” or “what was wrong with the old design?”. Well, there was nothing terribly wrong with More...
97 years
23 March, 2007 (9 comments)Were Akira Kurosawa alive today on March 23rd 2007, he would celebrate his 97th birthday. This means that in three years’ time we should expect quite some renewed interest towards More...
News from BFI
14 March, 2007 (5 comments)Thanks to Master Thief, I have corrected an error on the “Akira Kurosawa’s Movies on DVD” page — the BFI release of High and Low is 2.35:1, not 2.55:1 More...
About unscheduled downtime
13 March, 2007 (2 comments)Due to my current military service, I haven’t been able to monitor my websites as much as I would like to. However, the automatic monitoring systems that I use have More...
Sanshiro Sugata II in May by Eastern Eye
11 March, 2007 (5 comments)May 2nd, 2007 will see the Region 4 DVD release of Sanshiro Sugata II by Eastern Eye. Unless they have completely messed up the release, this DVD should become the More...
Seven Samurai or the Rites of Spring of Japanese Soul
8 March, 2007 (3 comments)Pardon me for not actually having had the time to read through the article in question, but as far as I can see an entry titled Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai or More...
A short Throne of Blood article
8 March, 2007There is a short but relatively readable Throne of Blood article at the Daily Vanguard. The text, which attempts to quickly answer the question “why should you care about a 50-year-old adaptation of a 450 year old play”, is tied to a screening of the film at the Clinton Street Theater, Portland (OR, USA).
More “lost” making of Ran footage
2 March, 2007 (2 comments)Another of those somewhat cryptic messages have been posted on YouTube showing some of the unreleased “making of” footage shot during the filming of Ran. See here.
‘Sanjuro’ (2007 remake) trailer on March 3rd
28 February, 2007 (4 comments)According to Variety, the first trailer for Yoshimitsu Morita’s Sanjuro will be playing during screenings of the Genghis Khan biopic ‘The Blue Wolf: To the Ends of the Earth and More...
DVD Times reviews the Artificial Eye release of ‘Dersu Uzala’
28 February, 2007 (9 comments)Noel Megahey at DVD Times has reviewed the region-free release of Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala by Artificial Eye. While I personally think that the film review makes a little bit More...
Akira Kurosawa and the Academy Awards
26 February, 2007 (28 comments)With the Academy Awards handed out yesterday (what do you think of the results?), and Scorsese finally getting that prestigious 13.5 inch gold-plated statuette, I thought that it might be More...
A Jim Sheridan remake of ‘Ikiru’ for 2008?
25 February, 2007 (12 comments)There is an IMDb page for a 2008 Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the Father, My Left Foot) movie that appears to be a remake of Kurosawa’s Ikiru. I More...
DVD section finished (sort of)
25 February, 2007 (2 comments)I’ve done quite a bit for this website today, although most of it has happened behind the scenes and won’t be visible to you, the visitor. However, I did finally More...
Good and Bad news regarding the “Akira Kurosawa’s Paintings” page
25 February, 2007 (3 comments)There is a series of good and bad news regarding the Akira Kurosawa’s Paintings section on this website: Good: Some time ago I was contacted by HoriPro Inc., the company More...
Website update
25 February, 2007The machinery behind this website has been updated (sorry if you tried to access the site during this time and received errors). I’m doing my best to make sure that everything functions as it should, but if you see something that looks odd, please drop me a line (the comment section here is fine).
Globe and Mail’s review of ‘Waiting on the Weather’
25 February, 2007 (2 comments)Gail Singer has reviewed Teruyo Nogami’s Waiting on the Weather for the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail. Singer is positive about the book, concluding that this “addition to the vast library of interpretation of Kurosawa makes a nice teatime break.” For the whole review, see globeandmail.com.
French High Definition ‘Ran’ in March
23 February, 2007 (40 comments)Studio Canal seems to be about to release a High Definition (HD) DVD of Kurosawa’s Ran on March 5th, 2007. I may be wrong here, but this might just be More...
Region 4 releases for ‘Madadayo’ and ‘The Quiet Duel’
23 February, 2007 (4 comments)Master Thief has kindly brought to my attention the fact that March 7th, 2007 will see the release of two region 4 Akira Kurosawa DVDs from the Australian company Madman More...
Three Kurosawa posts by Wabisabi
20 February, 2007 (13 comments)Reading Wabisabi’s latest Kurosawa related entries at her blog Beniguma, I just realised that I didn’t link to his earlier post on The Bad Sleep Well. I should have, as More...
About March 2007 (less frequent AKN&I updates)
17 February, 2007 (4 comments)This January I finished my Master’s degree. In case you are interested, I did an MA in English Studies, specialising on theoretical linguistics and especially so syntactic theory, but also More...
Samurai 7 at iTunes
17 February, 2007 (4 comments)FUNimation, the American distributor of many Japanese anime series, has made a deal with iTunes, bringing much of their content available for download. Included is Samurai 7, the animated TV More...
‘Making of Kagemusha’, part 2
13 February, 2007Continuing from where the video I linked to a few days ago ended, this YouTube video serves as the second part in the ‘Making of Kagemusha’. I have no idea how many of these will ultimately appear on the site.
A Making of ‘Kagemusha’ film on YouTube
10 February, 2007Someone has posted a short film on YouTube about the making of Kagemusha. I don’t really have much more to say about it, except that I think that I have More...
Download Rashomon at the Internet Archive
6 February, 2007 (30 comments)As reported earlier, Japanese movies made before 1953 are in public domain. The Internet Archive, which archives Internet and multimedia resources, has now added a downloadable version of Kurosawa’s Rashomon. More...
Two Rashomon-influenced movies for 2007
3 February, 2007This morning I stumbled upon two movies that are in no way connected to one another, except for both taking their inspiration from Kurosawa’s Rashomon. One is an art film More...
Today’s Miscellany
1 February, 2007This is just a short note to mention that the Japundit blog mentions a list of 100 thinkers and visionaries that the Japanese have recently voted the best in an More...
An article on Toru Takemitsu
31 January, 2007The New Yorker has an article on the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996), who is best known to those passionate about Akira Kurosawa’s movies for his scores for Ran and More...
AKN&I Returns From Maintenance: New Domain
29 January, 2007 (4 comments)The maintenance phase should now be over, and things are back in full operation. Comment sections are open again, so feel free to leave your thoughts! The most visible change More...
AKN&I Maintenance: Comments Temporarily Closed
28 January, 2007The next couple of days will see some changes in the way this website is hosted, and in order to keep everything running smoothly and prevent any more loss of More...
DigitallyObsessed reviews Yojimbo and Sanjuro DVDs
28 January, 2007Digitally Obsessed has a fairly long review of Criterion’s Yojimbo and Sanjuro discs. The movies are given top ratings, as is the video transfer, while audio and extras receive “only” B+. I also like the way they list the specs in a table format. See here for the reviews.
Yojimbo / Sanjuro DVD Review at Audiophile Audition
26 January, 2007 (1 comment)Here is yet another mid-length review of Criterion’s take on Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Sanjuro movies by Audiophile Audition. The films get 5/5 stars, and the discussion is similar to what More...
70 Hours of Film Footage Available from the Making of Ran?
26 January, 2007 (6 comments)Someone has recently posted a 5-minute long video on YouTube that shows behind-the-scenes activity from the shooting of Kurosawa’s late classic movie Ran. As the documentary-like film plays, and narrator More...
AKNI Comment Editing
24 January, 2007 (9 comments)Due to popular demand, comment editing is now available on this website. The solution is time-based, so at the moment you have 15 minutes after your original post to edit More...
Criterion’s Yojimbo and Sanjuro out on Tuesday
22 January, 2007 (25 comments)This is just a reminder to those of you who live in the US that Criterion’s new Yojimbo and Sanjuro DVDs will be available on Tuesday. The new high More...
AKNI Style Changes
22 January, 2007 (8 comments)There have been some relatively minor changes to the design of this website in the past couple of days. Hopefully, navigation around the site is now a bit simpler, and More...
Two Kurosawa mentions
21 January, 2007If you happen to be in Tokyo on Monday and enjoy contemporary dance, you may be interested to know that a production called Sokerissa! will be staged at three o’clock More...
Two ‘Waiting on the Weather’ related links
20 January, 2007 (8 comments)The Japan Times has two articles related to Teruyo Nogami’s Waiting on the Weather — Making Movies with Akira Kurosawa. Firstly, there is a relatively short (but positive) review of the book. Secondly, and perhaps more interestingly, there is an interview with Teruyo Nogami about the book and Kurosawa in general.
Criterion’s Seven Samurai Makes Sound & Vision’s Top 10 DVDs and CDs of 2006
20 January, 2007 (11 comments)Sound & Vision, which calls itself the world’s largest entertainment equipment magazine, has given us yet another top 10 of 2006 list. In this one, Criterion’s triple-DVD take on Akira More...
Article: Senseis and samurais - the gory films of Akira Kurosawa
19 January, 2007Written in connection with the current Akira Kurosawa retrospective in Santa Monica, USA, the following article published in the Daily Trojan is a brief look at the depiction of war More...
DVD File review of Criterion’s Yojimbo and Sanjuro
17 January, 2007DVD File has reviewed Criterion’s new Yojimbo and Sanjuro releases, and as expected gives thumbs up for the product. There is nothing really new in the review, but just for the completeness’s sake, here is the link.
DVD Talk reviews Criterion’s new Yojimbo and Sanjuro
15 January, 2007DVD Talk has reviewed Criterion’s new Yojimbo and Sanjuro releases, and the verdict is what we have wanted to hear — the movies are, indeed, hugely upgraded from Criterion’s original releases. (Then again, after the Seven Samurai release, I don’t think anyone had any doubts about this?) For the full review, head to DVD Talk.
Article: Kurosawa’s Red Harvests
12 January, 2007 (1 comment)The online edition of Tuesday’s New York Sun has a two-page article on the new Yojimbo and Sanjuro releases from Criterion. The write-up looks at both the influences as well as the background to the two films. See here for the article.
An Article on ‘See What I Wanna See’ (the “Rashomon musical”)
7 January, 2007The Boston Globe has a two-page article on Michael John LaChiusa’s See What I Wanna See, a musical originally inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon and further developed from Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s More...
Seven Samurai tops DVD Talk’s Top 10 DVDs of 2006
2 January, 2007 (1 comment)Although they themselves call it “arbitrary, non-inclusive, anglocentric and all wrong. It shuns indie films in favor of big studio ones, it’s seriously lacking in TV on DVD, and is More...
Further YouTube videos
1 January, 2007There are two new (and unrelated) YouTube videos taking inspiration from Akira Kurosawa. The first one calls itself a horror version of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru, although I am not entirely sure why. Perhaps a more interesting entry, then, is this paper-cut animated Sanshiro video, where you can relive the final battle from Kurosawa’s Sanshiro Sugata. Well, sort of.
First Episode of Samurai 7 on YouTube
1 January, 2007 (10 comments)Someone has uploaded the full first episode of Samurai 7, the anime series based on Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, to YouTube. In case you have been wondering how well (or how More...