Akira Kurosawa News, Information and Discussion
News archive for the 'Kurosawa Related' Category
Toho sues Cosmo… yet again
2 May, 2008 (1 comment)Toho has reportedly sued Cosmo for $130,000, this time due to the company manufacturing three classic non-Kurosawa films that Toho holds the copyright for. Earlier this year, Toho hit Cosmo More...
USC screening of The Last Princess
2 May, 2008 (2 comments)Japan Zone and Tokyo Graph have short articles on the recent University of Southern California screening of The Last Princess, a remake of Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress that opens in More...
Toho sues Cosmo over Kurosawa DVDs
20 March, 2008 (1 comment)According to Variety, Toho has thrown a $1.2 million lawsuit at Cosmo Coordinate that manufactured and sold budget versions of Kurosawa’s DVDs until the court ruling last year degreed that More...
Akemi Negishi passes away
18 March, 2008The Japanese actress Akemi Negishi died of cancer in Kawasaki on March 11 at the age of 73. Negishi first came into international prominence through Josef von Strinberg’s 1953 More...
Toru Takemitsu documentary
14 March, 2008 (1 comment)A documentary on the soundtrack work of Toru Takemitsu has appeared on YouTube. You can watch the first part here, and follow the “Related videos” links to continue with parts More...
Teruyo Nogami’s memoirs hit the silver screen in Berlin
14 February, 2008 (26 comments)Yoji Yamada’s Kabei - Our Mother, which is based on the war time memoirs of Teruyo Nogami, got its first foreign screening at the Berling Film Festival on Wednesday. The More...
Kon Ichikawa dies at 92
14 February, 2008 (2 comments)Legendary Japanese film maker Kon Ichikawa died yesterday of pneumonia in Tokyo. He was 92. The passing away of Ichikawa, who was perhaps best known abroad for The Burmese Harp 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...
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...
“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.
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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.
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
Eclipse: Criterion’s new line
18 December, 2006Criterion’s blog has announced a new line of products that will be released in addition to the regular high-quality Criterion releases that we have got so used to. The relevant More...
Sanjuro remake has a website
16 December, 2006Twitch, the film website that is especially interested in non-mainstream movies, reports that the upcoming remake of Kurosawa’s Sanjuro now has a website. It is all in Japanese, but in case you are interested, you can find it here. As the website is copyrighted for 2007, I take it to be rather recent.
Rambo IV borrows from Seven Samurai?
8 December, 2006To promote his upcoming Rocky VI, Sylvester Stallone has been answering questions at Ain’t It Cool News that have been sent by fans from around the world. He tackles a More...
A short Akira Kurosawa video at YouTube
7 December, 2006Someone has upload a minute-long video on YouTube that includes shots from some of his movies, and ends with Kurosawa saying a few words about how his intentions have been to make “beautiful films”. I don’t know where this is taken from, but you may nevertheless want to take the moment and watch it here.
Toshiro Mifune video
4 December, 2006Someone has gone through a number of Toshiro Mifune’s samurai roles and mashed it all together with the song “Holding Out for a Hero” playing on the background as performed by Frou Frou from the Shrek 2 soundtrack. The result is this Youtube video.
De Laatste Held, pt.2 (a Dutch Akira Kurosawa documentary)
29 November, 2006Ten days ago I reported about the first part of a Dutch Akira Kurosawa documentary, which had been uploaded to Google Video. The second part is now also available. See here.
Rotten Tomatoes film club discusses Sanjuro
27 November, 2006This is just a heads-up to let you know that some people at the Rotten Tomatoes film forums are running a film club, and Sanjuro is next week’s film. The More...
A Dutch Akira Kurosawa documentary
19 November, 2006 (1 comment)Google Video has the first part of a Dutch documentary called De Laatste Held (”The Last Hero”), which looks at some of Akira Kurosawa’s films from the background of the More...
Donal Richie’s films screened in Tokyo
10 November, 2006If you happen to live in Tokyo, the SuperDeluxe in Nishi-Azabu (Minato-ku) is going to be screening Donald Richie’s short works under the title Japanese Cinema Eclectics: Donald Richie — More...
Kurosawa and animals
9 November, 2006 (4 comments)Now, this may go somewhat beyond our usual coverage, but yesterday I found this rather interesting blog entry on Rose’s Crafty McGee blog, which is mainly about arts, crafts and More...
Forman and Ichikawa receive the Akira Kurosawa Award
30 October, 2006Since 2004, the Tokyo International Film Festival has included, among its other awards, the Akira Kurosawa Award. The award is given to to film directors and producers who have through More...
Donald Richie Tours the US East Coast
30 September, 2006The Japanese film expert Donald Richie will be making some appearances on the US East Coast in October. The Kurosawa-related events are: Thursday, 19th of October: Richie introduces a special More...
Teruyo Nogami: A new film + the Kurosawa book
29 September, 2006 (2 comments)After finding success with the recent samurai trilogy that included the 2004 Academy Award nominated film The Twilight Samurai, as well as The Hidden Blade and most recently Bushi More...
Article: On the restoration process of ‘Seven Samurai’
23 September, 2006CNN has an interesting article dealing with the work that went into restoring ‘Seven Samurai’. Apparently, the original negative of the film is missing, and the criterion DVD restoration More...
Seven Samurai meets Black Sabbath
24 June, 2006Someone has made a rather interesting mash-up of the trailer to Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and Black Sabbath’s song “War Pigs”. It is available at Google Video for you to see.
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...
Zhang Ziyi signs for a remake of ‘Seven Samurai’
4 June, 2006The reports are coming in that Zhang Ziyi has signed on for a three-movie deal with Harvey Weinstein. One of the films listed is the much-rumoured Seven Samurai remake that also has the names of George Clooney and Donnie Yen attached to it. Could this mean that it is really happening? We shall wait and see.
Samurai 7.0: a stage play
2 June, 2006The American Beau Jest Moving Theatre have adapted Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai on the stage as Samurai 7.0. The result is described on their website as a “timeless tale More...
Shohei Imamura Dies
30 May, 2006 (1 comment)The legendary Japanese New Wave director Shohei Imamura has passed away at the age of 79. He directed 22 films during his career spanning for more than four decades. His best known works include The Ballad of Narayama, Black Rain and The Eel.
Kurosawa inspired musical: ‘See What I Wanna See’
29 May, 2006This has somehow evaded my attention so far, but apparently a musical called See What I Wanna See was inspired by Rashomon. Whether it really is Kurosawa’s film, or more directly Akutagawa’s short story In A grove is not really made that clear by this article where I received my information from.
Mountain Patrol: traces of Kurosawa?
29 May, 2006A new Chinese film directed by Chuan Lu and titled Mountain Patrol has been compared to Kurosawa’s works by both the Seattle Times (”…reminiscent of David Lean’s sprawling spectacles and More...
Samurai 7
26 May, 2006Whether or not this is any good, I don’t know (yet I have my doubts). But since it has been in the news recently, and is vaguely Kurosawa related, I More...