Akira Kurosawa News, Information and Discussion
News archive for the tag "akira kurosawa"
AK Film Club: ‘Drunken Angel’ for June, other films to follow
8 May, 2008 (4 comments)Although we have yet but scratched the surface of Rashomon with our first ever Film Club discussion series, it is already time to start thinking about the next films so More...
Akira Kurosawa Online Film Club #1: Rashomon, May 1st
11 April, 2008 (2 comments)As decided earlier, AkiraKurosawa.info’s Akira Kurosawa Online Film Club will kick off on May 1st 2008 with Rashomon. Everyone is welcome to participate. The Film Club was set up to More...
Unfinished footage by Kurosawa to be released
2 March, 2008 (2 comments)The Screen Daily correspondent Jason Gray writes in his blog about a Kurosawa Production press conference, according to which footage from an unfinished 1983 documentary by Kurosawa, as well as More...
Beastie Boys Kurosawa
1 March, 2008 (9 comments)Criterion’s February 2008 newsletter has a “top ten Criterions” list from the Beastie Boys member Adam Yauch. Four of the ten films on his list are Kurosawa titles, with Seven More...
May 23 DVD release for Morita’s Sanjuro
29 February, 2008 (1 comment)According to the official website, the DVD for Yoshimitsu Morita’s remake of Sanjuro will be out on 23 May, 2008. The release will have two different versions, a basic DVD More...
Blogged: Detailed transcriptions of Kurosawa’s movies
21 February, 2008 (16 comments)Kurosawa continues to inspire people in many interesting ways. One of the most fascinating examples of this that I have seen in the recent past I stumbled upon this morning More...
Review: “Akira Kurosawa - Interviews”
2 February, 2008Published last December, Akira Kurosawa: Interviews is the latest volume in the University Press of Mississippi film book series Conversations with Filmmakers. It is also the first English language book 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...
New region 4 Kurosawa from Madman
24 January, 2008 (5 comments)As Master Thief pointed out a few days ago in the comments to Amazon’s new Kurosawa offerings, the Australian Madman Entertainment’s Eastern Eye series put out a host of new More...
Amazon’s new Kurosawa offerings
22 January, 2008 (5 comments)The Amazon.com exclusive Criterion Collection Director Series: Akira Kurosawa that I wrote about recently turns out to consist of Criterion’s new version of Yojimbo, Seven Samurai and Sanjuro (as well More...
Two new Rashomon releases
21 January, 2008January 7 quietly saw the All Regions DVD release of Rashomon by a company called Triad Productions. Based on the item description on the Amazon website, according to which the More...
Postwar Kurosawa reviews
14 January, 2008 (3 comments)Reviews of the Postwar Kurosawa set have started to fly in. As usual, DVD Talk gives us a good general overview of the box set, while the DVD Beaver review More...
An Indian Kurosawa box set to be released
9 January, 2008The Indian film company Palador Pictures has announced the release of an Akira Kurosawa DVD Box Set comprising five of the director’s best known films. The box set is exclusively 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
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!
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...
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...
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).
‘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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Possible future Akira Kurosawa offerings from BFI
23 December, 2006There is a word going around that BFI, which has put out several quality releases of Kurosawa’s movies, is considering releasing Dodesukaden, The Most Beautiful, They Who Tread on The 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.
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.
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.
Miki Odagiri passes away
5 December, 2006Miki Odagiri, who played Toyo Odagiri (the girl in Watanabe’s office) in Ikiru is reported to have passed away on the 28th of November. She was 76 years of age, More...
A souvenir from Cannes
3 December, 2006Here’s little something I took a photo of last summer when in Cannes, and remembered only now. For those who do not know, the pedestrian areas in the park More...
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.
Fox’s Kagemusha release is a shorter cut
27 November, 2006 (2 comments)As most of you probably know, Kagemusha comes in a number of lengths, most importantly the original Japanese 179 minute version, and the so-called “International Cut” that runs for 162 More...
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...
Article on Kurosawa’s ‘High and Low’
26 November, 2006The PassionForCinema blog has published a nice review of Kurosawa’s High and Low, written by someone by the pseudonym t!. There are some nice observations there, and it reads well. Especially recommended if you have not seen the movie yet, and are thinking which Kurosawa film to watch next!
Fumio Hayasaka’s Seven Samurai and Rashomon recordings in MP3
25 November, 2006 (4 comments)Like some of the online streams of Kurosawa’s movies that I have liked to recently, the following will be something that is strictly speaking not entirely legal. Bear that in More...
Kurosawa on XBox 360
23 November, 2006 (5 comments)Microsoft’s new gaming console XBox 360 apparently comes with an online downloads store, one part of which is the so-called XBox Live Video service that allows users to rent digital More...
Criterion working on 6 more Kurosawa titles?
20 November, 2006 (1 comment)I was just reading through last month’s posts on the IMDb’s Kurosawa forum, and saw a link to this Criterion Collection discussion forum, which lists the titles expected to be More...
DVD Times reviews Optimum’s ‘Ran’
20 November, 2006 (5 comments)Kevin Gilvear at DVD Times has reviewed Optimum’s Region 2 release of Ran, which is due out on November 26th. Rather than spending any time with the movie itself, 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...
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...
Rashomon, Sanjuro and Yojimbo at vidiLife.com
14 November, 2006Someone has uploaded Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Sanjuro and Yojimbo to vidiLife, a service much like Youtube. While the earlier Google Video versions of Sanshiro Sugata and Rashomon may or may 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...
Region 2 ‘Ran’ released on November 20th in the UK
7 November, 2006 (11 comments)Optimum Releasing is putting out a new region 2 DVD version of Ran on November 20 this year. MovieMail.co.uk indicates that the double disc release will include the documentary “A.K.” by Chris Marker, but does not seem to have any of the other extras present in the region 1 Criterion Collection DVD.
Article: Movies Akira Kurosawa Saw
5 November, 2006 (2 comments)There is an excellent and very interesting post at lady_wakasa’s blog, basically taking Something Like an Autobiography (Kurosawa’s autobiography, as you all know) and chronologically listing the films that the mentions up until the age of 19. The resulting list is one of the most interesting things I have seen for a long time!
Information about the Cinema Reserve (R2) edition of Kagemusha
4 November, 200620th Century Fox is putting out a new region 2 release of Kagemusha under their ‘Cinema Reserve’ series. The double DVD is to be released on November 27. The More...
Article: Pluralism - Rashomon and Contested Conceptions of Criminality
2 November, 2006Update (November 9): The body of the essay has now been changed and corresponds with the abstract. Do take a look if you are interested. Through the Legal Theory Blog 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...
Article on ‘The Bad Sleep Well’
20 October, 2006There is an interesting little article at The Indigestible on Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well. It makes a curious suggestion that the film could be seen as “a bizarre More...
Details for Criterion’s Yojimbo and Sanjuro
18 October, 2006 (2 comments)We have not yet properly managed to get over the brilliance of Criterion’s Seven Samurai, and now the company is putting out information about their upcoming Yojimbo and Sanjuro More...
DVD Times: Criterion’s Seven Samurai set
17 October, 2006My personal DVD website of choice, DVD Times, has published a review of Criterion’s Seven Samurai, and like all the reviews before it praises the DVD set as not More...
Public Domain Kurosawa Films Available at Google Video
7 October, 2006Update: These films are now available with English subtitles. Some of you may remember my earlier post about pre-1953 Japanese films being in public domain. While I am still a More...
Article on Rashomon
5 October, 2006Charlie Thomason at Cinema Noir has posted an article about Rashomon, which is well written and introduces the film nicely. Do take a look.
Kurosawa Article: Red Beard (plus Ikiru)
3 October, 2006 (4 comments)There is a rather good piece written by Ganesh at Brooklyn Masala about Red Beard (Akahige). Do take a look: link Update: And I thought I already linked to this one, but it seems I didn’t: here is Ganesh’s earlier article on Ikiru. Enjoy!
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...
The Quiet Duel on DVD
30 September, 2006This somehow almost slipped past my radar unnoticed. While we were all concentrated on Criterion’s Seven Samurai release, BCI/Ronin entertainment has meanwhile put out a DVD of The Quiet 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...
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...
Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Seven Samurai’ currently the third most talked about classic movie
18 September, 2006 (2 comments)According to my new cinema related web service, Movie Say: the Film Buzz Index, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai currently ranks as the third most discussed classic film on the 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...
Blogged: Ikiru
6 September, 2006Agus at Rhythmic Soul has blogged on Kurosawa’s Ikiru. You can read his reflections here.
Tehran pays hommage to Kurosawa
6 September, 2006September 12th marks the Cinema Day in Iran, and this year it is Akira Kurosawa who will be honoured at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall. Some of Kurosawa’s colleagues will give speeches on their memories of the late director, as well as reflecting on his cinematic style and technique. There will also be an exhibition of posters and manuscripts. Source: Mehrnews
Blogged: Blogging a disastrously translated “Record of a Living Being”
2 September, 2006J. M. Kearns at Idyllopus has posted a mammoth article on “Record of a Living Being”, and it is well worth reading through. Not only will it practically make you More...
DVD Talk Review of Criterion’s new ‘Seven Samurai’
26 August, 2006 (4 comments)The new region 1 Criterion version of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, which spans three whole DVDs, is going to be relesed on September 5th. DVD Talk has taken a look More...
Blogged: Shots in ‘Throne of Blood’
23 August, 2006 (2 comments)KM writes some interesting observations about Throne of Blood at his blog Flotsam. The comments are also worth scanning through.
Blogged: Samurai archery
7 August, 2006Samurai Dave - The Roving Ronin Report has an interesting article on the history behind Japanese horseback archery. What makes the text relevant to Kurosawa is the following paragraph, which More...
Blogged: a Stray Dog article
1 August, 2006 (5 comments)Mark at Movie Masterworks has written an excellent article on Stray Dog (Nora inu). His observations on Kurosawa’s movie are well worth reading. Before you go, however, please note that More...
Blogged: Yojimbo opening shots
24 July, 2006Jim Emerson’s Scanners blog has a new entry on the opening shots of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. Do take a look.
Akira Kurosawa exhibiton in Tokyo
22 July, 2006An exhibition of Akira Kurosawa’s paintings opened yesterday at the Meguro Gajoen centre in Tokyo. The event, which lasts until the 13th of August this year, is titled “Hundred-stepped Stairway More...
Donnie Yen on the state of Seven Samurai remake
21 July, 2006Malaysia Star quotes Donnie Yen, who in a press conference yesterday confirmed that the Weinstein Company’s project for a Hollywood remake of Seven Samurai is still in its very early 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...
Pre-1953 Japanese films are in public domain
12 July, 2006 (3 comments)News are emerging that a Tokyo District court has ruled all pre-1953 Japanese films to be in the public domain. Paramount Pictures was contesting this based on a 2004 ruling More...
Blogged: Oddest director/actor pairs
12 July, 2006The film blog Cinematical has run an article about the seven oddest director actor combos. Akira Kurosawa makes the list with his Rhapsody in August star Richard Gere.
Criterion’s Seven Samurai: further details
26 June, 2006Further details about Criterion’s Seven Samurai restoration process have emerged. See this Livejournal entry for details. Criterion appears to have gone all the way to preserve the film, so kudos to them for that.
New website additions
25 June, 2006Some new trailers of Akira Kurosawa’s movies have now been added to the Akira Kurosawa videos and trailers section. I also made some preliminary research on the availability of Kurosawa related movie posters. See the results in the new Akira Kurosawa posters section. As always, comments and queries are more than welcome!
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.
3 Disc ‘Seven Samurai’ on its way
16 June, 2006On September the 5th this year Criterion will release a new edition of Seven Samurai, and this one looks like it will finally be the definite one. Certainly better than 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...
Takemitsu downloads
11 June, 2006Psst. If you follow this link, you arrive at a blog called Classical Connection that specializes in making out-of-print classical music available. And even more interestingly, you end up on More...
John Fusco to pen the ‘Seven Samurai’ remake
9 June, 2006 (1 comment)Reports are flying in that John Fusco has been attached to write the script for the much-talked-about Seven Samurai remake. The choice is not entirely odd considering that Fusco has More...
Zhang Ziyi’s proposed role in the ‘Seven Samurai’ remake
7 June, 2006 (1 comment)Guardian Unlimited’s film section adds to the ‘Seven Samurai’ rumours by noting that Zhang Ziyi “is reportedly interested in playing the part of a peasant girl who hides from bandits More...
Ambiguity over Donnie Yen’s comments about ‘Seven Samurai’
6 June, 2006A Twitchfilm article has pointed out that what Donnie Yen has actually said about his conversations with Harvey Weinstein at Cannes could be first of all interpreted as not necessarily referring to a Seven Samurai remake but a remake of some Kurosawa film in general, and secondly that nothing concrete really has yet been decided.
Management trouble in the Kurosawa family?
5 June, 2006This comes a bit late, but as reported by Hoga News which in turn refers to a Japanese article found here, it appears that the confusion with the planned More...
Kurosawa and the Blogosphere
2 June, 2006In this week’s roundup of Kurosawa related blog entries… Martha Fischer has expressed her opinion about the new Seven Samurai remake at Cinematical.com. A similar opinion may also be found at I Watch Stuff.
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...
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.