Favorite Movie Maker #10

Akira Kurosawa

Number ten on my list of favorite movie makers is the oft-imitated, never bettered, Japanese master, Akira Kurosawa.

Kurosawa was the first foreign-language filmmaker I ever got into back when I was 17ish, and he is still far and away my favorite.

For those who don't know, Kurosawa made numerous sick movies from 1943 right into the 90s. His breakout film was Rashomon in 1950, which was a movie so good and so universally acclaimed that Hollywood had to finally stop pretending great movies weren't made outside the U.S. So thanks to Kurosawa and Rashomon, the Academy invented an award to give out to non-American films, and thus the Best Foreign Language Oscar was born.

Kurosawa was greatly influenced by Hollywood movies, especially westerns by the great John Ford. Essentially what Kurosawa did with a lot of his best films was take the Hollywood western and set it during Japan's Feudal period. And in case you aren't too familiar with Japanese history, the only thing you really need to know is that the Feudal period = samurais. So, yeah, Kurosawa took everything that was great about Hollywood westerns and added samurais. If that isn't a recipe for kick ass movies, I don't know what is.

In the process, Kurosawa not only managed to perfect the classic Hollywood western, but he also took it to a whole new level. He made the emotions of the characters more genuine and intense. He made the violence more visceral and graphic. He told stories that were fresh and original. He made action sequences that were more exciting and better orchestrated, yet at the same time they had a spontaneous, unchoreographed feel to them, much like a real fight or battle. Punches didn't always land cleanly. Kicks weren't perfectly blocked. Sword fights were quick and lethal; they weren't long and drawn out with swords repeatedly clashing in perfect unison. He also got better, more authentic performances out of actors who probably had less talent than those in Hollywood. Basically what Kurosawa did was make the Hollywood western better in every conceivable way.

I should also point out that Kurosawa didn't just make samurai versions of Hollywood westerns; he made all different kinds of great films. He made heart-wrenching dramas like the masterpiece Ikiru and the highly-underrated Rhapsody in August. He adapted Shakespeare a few times. He made film noir-style crime pictures like Stray Dog and High & Low. He worked in all sorts of genres, with every film having the same thing in common: so sick!

In making all these amazing films, Kurosawa inspired pretty much every great director that came after him. Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Bernardo Bertolucci, John Woo, Werner Herzog, Roman Polanski, Robert Altman and tons of others all consider(ed) Kurosawa to be a major influence on their work.

When you start watching Kurosawa for the first time you are bombarded with feelings of deja vu. Whether it be a shot, a line of dialogue, a scene, a character or a plot line, every one of his films seems to have at least a dozen moments that have been directly lifted by other filmmakers. George Lucas being the most infamous and obvious of the Kurosawa thieves. Seriously, the original Star Wars is basically Kurosawa in space. Luckily though, that is a BRILLIANT idea and a major reason why Star Wars rules.

Now if I were a big time filmmaker, I would steal from the following Kurosawa films the most, as they are my favorites:

#3. Yojimbo and Sanjuro

Yojimbo and Sanjuro are actually two movies, released back to back in '61 and '62, and they follow the same character -- a cunning, witty and totally deadly ronin named Sanjuro, who strolls into different messed-up, morally-questionable situations and kills his way to a solution. (That is my horribly simplistic and ignorant synopsis of two complex, multi-layered masterpieces.)

Yojimbo and Sanjuro were the inspiration for Sergio Leone's "Dollars" trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly -- three of the greatest films ever made, by the way). A Fistful of Dollars being a direct (albeit uncredited) remake of Yojimbo. In these OG versions by Kurosawa, Clint Eastwood's "man with no name" is played by Toshiro Mifune.

In case you don't know anything about Kurosawa, Mifune is to Kurosawa what John Wayne is to John Ford or what Robert De Niro is to Martin Scorsese. Mifune is Kurosawa's "go to guy", and he stars in many of his best films, often stealing the show. Mifune is like Clint Eastwood, Robert De Niro, James Cagney, John Cassavetes, Marlon Brando, Lee Marvin, Warren Oates and Klaus Kinski all rolled into one Japanese bad ass.

Here's Toshiro Mifune killing numerous dudes. Interesting fact: George Lucas' originally envisioned Toshiro Mifune in the role of old Ben Kenobi. Not surprising, considering Kurosawa practically co-directed Star Wars with how much Lucas borrowed verbatim.

Yojimbo and Sanjuro are equally amazing films. I don't think I can pick which one I like better, hence why they are tied as my third favorite Kurosawa film. If you've never watched Kurosawa, I'd say these two films, or Seven Samurai, would be the best way to get into him. All the things people love about Kurosawa are most clearly on display in these films: the tight editing and pacing, the emotionally-charged performances, the perfectly composed shots, the fully realized and totally cool characters, the sick action sequences and intriguing stories. They've got everything you could possibly want in a film. And, as a bonus, Sanjuro has one of the all-time greatest kills in movie history. Seriously, it's right up there with the decapitation by flying plate glass window in The Omen.

#2. Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai is basically the shortest three and a half hour movie you will ever watch. I remember the first time I saw it, I figured I'd watch it in two sittings, since it was so long. Three and a half hours later, I didn't want it to end. It literally felt like I watched maybe a two hour movie. And, yeah, it's the kind of movie you are sad see come to an end. The rarest of things and the true sign of a great film (or book or video game) is when you know it is going to end soon and you just don't want it to. You wish it would just keep going and going.

Basically, Seven Samurai is about these little whiny bitch farmers who know that bandits will be coming at the end of the harvest to steal all their crops, so they hire seven samurais help them ward off these bandits.

Seven Samurai was horribly remade by Hollywood as The Magnificent Seven, which is often regarded as one of the best Westerns ever. I seriously have no idea why. I thought it truly sucked. And it's not because I am some sort of Hollywood hater, because I'm not. And its also not because I'm pissed someone attempted to remake such a flawless film, because Leone did with Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars is one of my favorite films. And, as I said earlier, Kurosawa loved Hollywood westerns and his samurai films are basically Hollywood westerns set in Feudal Japan. So, naturally, Seven Samurai should have made for a great western. Magnificent Seven was even loaded with numerous great actors (Charles Bronson and Steve McQueen. So sick) and a solid director (John Sturges). But, man, I REALLY hated Magnificent Seven. I thought that movie was total garbage juice. The farmers were so annoying. All I wanted was for the Magnificent Seven to turn on them and kill them all. And the worst part of all was the guy they had in the Toshiro Mifune role. He was the absolute worst. They cast this second rate, wannabe teen heart throb-type tool to play Mifune who is like the craziest rebel, off-the-chains, rabid mad dog ever. Give me a friggin' break!

Seriously, this guy...

...was supposed to fill this guy's shoes. Yeah, that's not going to be totally lame.

But, anyway, back to Seven Samurai. It rules on every level. Just go watch it. Spielberg watches it before every movie he makes for inspiration, and to challenge himself to obtain cinematic perfection like Kurosawa did. Plus, the final rainy showdown between the bandits and samurais is one of the great finales in film history.

#1. Ran

My favorite Kurosawa film, Ran (pronounced "rawn" like "dawn" but with an "r"; it's the Japanese word for "chaos") was from 1985 and it was his last large-scale action/war epic. It's an adaptation of King Lear set in Feudal Japan, and, in my opinion, it's the greatest film adaptation of Shakespeare ever (although it uses none of Shakespeare's dialogue, so it may be unfair to call it the best Shakespeare movie ever, but whatever, its got samurais).

The thing that blew me away the most about Ran last time I watched it, was how nearly every shot in the movie is so beautiful and so perfectly composed, that you could seriously take any frame, blow it up and hang it on the wall in the world's finest art galleries.

Like take a look at this friggin' shot! I could stare at this for hours. Don't tell my wife, but I'm going to get this piece of fine art blown up and hanged in our living room

What makes Ran and almost all of Kurosawa's films so special, is how they manage to engage you on so many levels. They engage you intellectually with deep characterizations, complex moral questions and intriguing takes on historical periods and great literary works, while, at the same time, engaging you emotionally, with sympathetic protagonists and supremely well-told stories.

Basically, if you want a movie that makes you think, watch Kurosawa. If you want a movie that you can just sit back, turn off your brain, and enjoy with a bowl of popcorn, watch Kurosawa.