Tag Archive: Japanese movies

A Month of Kurosawa: Stray Dog (1949)

November 9, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! Stray Dog (1949) “Masterpiece” is probably a word that gets thrown around a little too easily, especially when discussing movies, but it’s hard not to use the word when discussing 1949’s Stray Dog, a gritty crime noir by Akira Kurosawa that peels back the curtain on postwar Japan’s underground crime scene and presents some stark moral questions in the process. Stray Dog once again…
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Films

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A Month of Kurosawa: Drunken Angel (1948)

November 7, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! Drunken Angel (1948) Here’s a recipe for movie magic: Put Toshiro Mifune on screen. Pair him with Takashi Shimura. And have Akira Kurosawa direct them. Still a no-name actor, this was Mifune’s first of many roles for Kurosawa, and he came out of the gate strong. The always reliable Shimura was supposed to be the lead here, but Mifune steals so many scenes it…
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Films

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A Month of Kurosawa: One Wonderful Sunday (1947)

November 6, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! One Wonderful Sunday (1947) Released in 1947, One Wonderful Sunday follows a young couple through post-war Japan as they struggle to enjoy their life despite being destitute. They’re poor, hungry, and desperate, with little brightness ahead of them in the rough years after World War II, but they try their best to make it work. “People only realize the value of money when they’re…
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Films

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A Month of Kurosawa: No Regrets For Our Youth (1946)

November 5, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! No Regrets For Our Youth (1946) No Regrets For Our Youth was a post-war drama by Akira Kurosawa that mixes equal parts political protest, love triangle, and family drama. Kurosawa’s pictures are virtually always political in some way — he had a tremendous focus on social consciousness — but they were rarely overtly political. Rather, you often had to read between the lines to…
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Films

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A Month of Kurosawa: The Most Beautiful (1944)

November 2, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! The Most Beautiful (1944) The 2nd film by Akira Kurosawa was an unlikely one, given his anti-authoritarian nature: a WWII propaganda film focused on a group of women working in a wartime factory. Here, the young women face illness, crushing deadlines, and more, but through their indomitable spirit (and with the help of a caring leader) they come to find joy in giving themselves…
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Films, Works by Eric

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