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As the film director who discovered him , Akira Kurosawa once enjoin : “ The average Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an depression . Toshiro Mifune involve only three feet . ”
One of the country ’s most fabled stars , Mifune bring a strong-arm pizzaz and tender emotionality to international screenland unlike anyone had ever see . Now , on the month of his hundredth birthday , Criterion Channel has meet a retrospective of his neat films . Below , we heel ten of our pet .
Drunken Angel (1948)
In this first of sixteen collaborations between Mifune and Akira Kurosawa , he plays Matsunaga , a cantankerous criminal permeate with tuberculosis . He strikes up an unbelievable friendly relationship with an alcoholic doctor ( Takashi Shimura ) and is almost convinced to give up his wicked ways until his old crime boss , Okada ( Reisaburo Yamamoto ) is released from prison , draw Matsunaga back into the Yakuza underworld .
A acrimonious noir determine in postwar Tokyo , Drunken Angelwas just the starting gun for what would becomeone of cinema ’s most prolific and impressive collaborative runs .
Stray Dog (1949)
In one of the earliest Nipponese tec movie , Mifune lead as a young galosh whose gun is pickpocketed while razz a crowded jitney . dictated to get his weapon back , he scour the street of Tokyo looking for the " isolated dog " who wrong him while ruminate on his own darker proclivities .
Shooting from a script base on Jules Dassin’sThe Naked City(1948),Stray Dogdepicts a flyblown postwar Japan as a observation of the criminal thinker .
Wedding Ring (1950)
Keisuke Kinoshita ’s melodrama tramp Mifune ( in firm heartthrob mood ) as a soft - spoken Dr. who flow for the wife of his affected role , a jewelry store president . The sparks between Mifune and his costar Kinuyo Tanaka never quite fly — this is about as straight a " romance " as you ’re likely to find — butWedding Ringshows Mifune at his most vulnerable and raw ( sometimes emotionallyandphysically ) , a far shout his usually volcanic screen persona .
I Live In Fear (1955)
I Live In Fearstars Toshiro Mifune as Kiichi Nakajima , a paranoid elderly foundry proprietor hell - bent on spirit his loved ones to South America to avoid the atomic conflict he ’s certain is looming . When his reluctant family has him ruled unequal to , Nakajima must go before a three - military man tribunal to defend himself .
Finally laying his feeling about World War II to rest , Kurosawa’sI Live In Fearis a galvanizing speculation on deal cultural trauma .
Throne of Blood (1957)
Akira Kurosawa ’s first Shakespeare adaptation star Mifune as a battle harden feudalistic warrior who scrabbles after powerfulness with this help of his conniving married woman ( Isuzu Yamada ) . Having made his epic masterpieceSeven Samurai(1954 ) just a few age prior , Kurosawa ’s signified for tumid scale spectacle makesThrone of Bloodone of the most brutal and thrilling Bard adaption ever made , built around Mifune at his most savage .
Muhomatsu, The Rickshaw Man (1958)
Mifune stars as a penniless though optimistic rickshaw number one wood call Matsugoro who ’s beloved by his town . When he assists an injured boy and is tasked by his parents with shuttling him to and from his doc ’s appointment , the two manakin a strong emotional alliance . But when the boy ’s father go bad and Matsugoro falls for his mother , the class watershed between them may be too large to bridge .
Director Hiroshi Inagaki is best know for his , The Samurai Trilogy(also starring Mifune ) , butMuhomatsu , The Rickshaw Manis a tender going that ’s also worth a flavour .
Yojimbo (1961)
When a wandering samurai ( Mifune ) happens upon a village torn apart by two rival gang , he incubate a plan to meet them against each other in this wickedly entertaining genre - bender . Mifune played manyrecognizable samuraiover the decades , butYojimbofeatures him in what may be his most iconic role as the charismatic and deviously canny Sanjuro . The film would go on to influence horde of writing style filmmakers , being remake doubly : by Sergio Leone as a Western ( A Fistful of Dollars)and Walter Hill as a Gangster pic ( Last valet de chambre Standing ) .
High and Low (1963)
Adapted from Ed McBain’sKing ’s Ransom , High and Lowconcerns King Gondo ( Mifune ) , a affluent horseshoe executive whose child is abduct at the handwriting of a cruel extortionist .
Mixing elements of the police procedural , domestic drama , and police detective account with an clever social organisation that literally takes the looker from the apex of privilege to the rock bottoms of penury ( highandlow , get it ? ) , this film is both thriller and social comment all - in - one .
Samurai Rebellion (1967)
Isaburo Sasahara ( Mifune ) , is a worn - out swordsman living in solitude until ordered by a feudal lord to wed his Word , Yogoro ( Go Kato ) to the lord ’s concubine . Reluctant , but eager to obey , Isaburo and Yogoro take the womanhood in , and the latter presently falls for her . But all is not paradise , and when the savage lord demand his mistress back , Isaburo and Yogoro refuse , setting off a chain of events that may destroy everything they bonk .
A masterwork to compliment his earlierHarakiri(1962 ) , Masaki Kobayashi’sSamurai Rebellionis a likewise compelling tale of the mediocre human beings ’s battle against injustice .
Red Sun (1971)
Mifune star alongside Charles Bronson as a duo of outlaw on the trail of a priceless sword slip by a brigand ( Alain Delon ) in Red Sun , Bond Series mainstay Terence Young ’s delicious mash - up of Eastern and Western cinematic mythology . Also featuring Ursula Andress ( Honey Rider , herself),Red Sunis a whizz - studded , rip - yaup escapade recital unlike any else !
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