Akira Kurosawa News, Information and Discussion
News archive for the 'Kurosawa’s Influence' Category
Daily Yomimuri review of ‘The Last Princess’
9 May, 2008Daily Yomimuri Online has a review of the new Hidden Fortress remake The Last Princess. Unlike the Mark Schilling review that I linked to earlier today, the Daily Yomimuri piece, More...
Mark Schilling reviews ‘The Last Princess’
9 May, 2008The Japan Times’s Mark Schilling, who has written extensively on modern Japanese film, gave us the first verdict of last year’s remake of Sanjuro, and he is at it again More...
The Last Princess: US premiere, The Three website
18 April, 2008Before its official May 10 opening in Japan, The Last Princess (the new remake of The Hidden Fortress) will have its US premiere in Los Angeles. The screening will take More...
Second teaser trailer for The Last Princess
18 March, 2008 (1 comment)The second teaser trailer for Shinji Higuchi’s remake of Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, renamed The Last Princess, has been made available on the updated official website. The trailer is also More...
The Last Princess theme song announced
14 March, 2008 (1 comment)Famed Japanese rocker Tomoyasu Hotei, RnB singer Kreva and bassist Seiji Kameda (of the band Tokyo Jihen) have been announced as working on the theme song for Shinji Higuchi’s remake More...
The Hidden Fortress has full trailer, becomes “The Last Princess”
10 February, 2008 (13 comments)Shinji Higuchi’s remake of Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress now has a full trailer, available on the official website, as well as at YouTube. The trailer seems to put into question More...
“In a Bamboo Grove” on BBC Radio
26 January, 2008Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s In a Bamboo Grove has been dramatised for the radio by the BBC. The short story, of course, worked as the primary source text for Kurosawa’s Rashomon. I More...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Rocking the Throne of Blood
8 December, 2006The New York based post-punk rock band The Rapture have announced the forming of their new record label, called Throne of Blood Records. The reference seems to be to Akira Kurosawa’s Kumonosu-jo, which is sometimes also called The Cobweb Castle in the English speaking world. For more information, see the full news at Pitchfork Media.
Sanjuro press conference
14 November, 2006 (7 comments)Toho held a press conference on Sunday for the new Sanjuro remake, which has already started filming and is to be released in Japan in December 2007. Very little new More...
Akira Kurosawa on Robert Altman’s list
29 September, 2006It is perhaps somewhat irrelevant, but I thought I might mention it anyway. A recent Sydney Morning Herald article/interview with Robert Altman mentions that Altman admires Kurosawa’s films. The article More...
2004-2005 Akira Kurosawa Memorial Short Film Competition DVD Release
9 September, 2006Sorry about the gigantic title. It has recently come to my attention that a (region 2) DVD is to be released later this month collecting some of the works submitted More...
A Japanese “Sanjuro” remake on its way
13 July, 2006 (1 comment)The Japan film news blog Ryuganji reported today that a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1962 film Tsubaki Sanjuro (or “Sanjuro” in English) is being prepared in Japan. The film, which More...
Yojimbo 5
11 June, 2006While some of us are horrified by the recent rumours about a Seven Samurai remake, it is good to remember that it would not be the first time Kurosawa’s films More...
Sprite Animation’s Monster Samurai Influenced by Kurosawa
31 May, 2006In a press release available at Yahoo! Financial News, Moto Sakakibara, the writer-director of a forthcoming film and TV series Monster Samurai, is quoted mentioning Akira Kurosawa as one of his influences. In case you are interested in the project, you can read an introduction and see some pictures at Sprite Animation’s showcase page.