Samurai Am I Part Three

By the time of 'Red Beard' in 1965, both Toshiro Mifune and Akira Kurosawa had huge reputations in Japan. Mifune was the largest star in the country, able to appear in cameos and still get the biggest image on the poster, such as in 'Chushingura'. Kurosawa had some big hits as a director, an international reputation, but was seen as a tyrant on the set by the Japanese public. When the pair split, their careers went in opposite directions.

Kurosawa had another script ready quickly, 'Runaway Train'. However, it was a difficult and expensive production, so Toho and all other Japanese studios passed on it. Twenty years later, it would be made without Kurosawa's input in Canada, starring Jon Voight. Not to worry; Akira was signed up to do the Japanese sections of  'Tora, Tora, Tora'.

Darryl Zanuck had been the best of the golden age of Hollywood's movie moguls, turning the miniscule Twentieth Century Fox into a major studio. He did retire in 1954, leaving his wife to shack up with various European starlets while flying around the world, shooting aerials. When he tired of this, he started his dream project, 'The Longest Day'. only to find that 20th Century was broke, bled dry by 'Cleopatra'. Zanuck charged back in, seizing control of the studio to save his picture in 1962.

Now, six years later, Zanuck wanted to repeat his success by focusing on Pearl Harbor, using the multi-national format that worked so well last time. He promised Kurosawa the chance to co-direct the movie with John Ford, Akira's hero. However, Ford was blind in one eye, a mostly bed-ridden alcoholic, not physically capable any more. So Zanuck replaced him, wisely, with Richard Fleischer, who had worked extensively with large scale water based movie productions such as '20,000 Leagues under the Sea' and 'The Vikings', both very good.

Akira felt slighted, pouting, starting work at a snail's pace, getting nothing done day after day. Zanuck had no trouble firing him, having previous wrangled difficult directors like John Ford and Samuel Fuller. He was replaced with Kinji Fukasaku, who did everything from 'The Green Slime' to 'Battle Royale', along with many excellent yakuza films. Akira was through with studios; it was time to start producing himself.

Toshiro Mifune was ready to stand on his own two feet. Besides starting his own production company, he had even directed one picture in 1963. It was time to step out onto the international stage. His first film was a giant, directed by a top Hollywood talent, John Frankenheimer, straight off four masterpieces; 'The Manchurian Candidate', 'Seven Days in May', 'The Train' and 'Seconds'. Mifune was billed fourth in 'Grand Prix', an excellent film about Formula One racing. Steve McQueen may have been cooler in 'Le Mans', but the editing, camerawork (in Cinerama), and stunt work was far superior. Toshiro was treated with great respect both I the script and on the set.

Toshiro made some of his best samurai pictures during this period. 'The Sword of Doom', technically a starring vehicle for brooding Tatsuya Nakadai, has perhaps the best action sequence in Mifune's career, in the snow he chops down forty or so assassins. 'Samurai Rebellion' is just as good, once again facing off against Tatsuya, as is 'Samurai Assassin', both from Mifune Productions. There were a string of films about the Second World War, Toshiro always playing the top military brass. The only picture from this period that he was not in was 'Tora, Tora, Tora'; did he deliberately avoid it to avoid Kurosawa?

'Hell in the Pacific' is a great motion picture, with only two actors, Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune, both the height of their star power. John Boorman crafted something between an action and an art film. Having only two characters on a deserted island for 103 minutes was a difficult task, but the end product is a wonderful film, two enemies constantly one-upping each other. Finally, they realize that their survival depends on working together, only to find that when they return to civilization, they become enemies again.

Mifune tried two large samurai productions at the time, with mixed results. 'Samurai Banners' is pure spectacle, huge armies on the march, banners flying, a cast of thousands. Hiroshi Inagaki directed, previously working with Mifune in the Samurai Trilogy as well as popular 'Rickshaw Man'. It is big, it is spectacular, but it is not very good. The action is non-stop but wooden, Mifune eats scenery. Even the shocking violence at the end, a Kurosawa trade mark, comes off as ridiculous.

"Red Lion' is much better. For one thing, it shows Toshiro in comedy mode for most of its running time, rarely seen in the West. Mifune plays a goof ball who is given a position of power, not realizing that he is only softening up the locals for a brutal takeover. He goes to his hometown, meeting his old mother, rescuing his girlfriend from prostitution. His energy is so infectious that everyone goes temporarily crazy. Right up until the tragic energy, it is wonderful to see Mifune display such excellent comedic skills.

Unfortunately, the Japanese film industry was in meltdown, television drastically reducing audiences. While total crap such as 'Shogun's Joy of Torture' or 'Inferno of Torture' swamped the market, it was getting hard for even big stars to survive. Mifune made a two picture deal with the other huge male actor, Shintaro Katsu, each to star in one while supporting in the other. The result were Toshiro's last two performances as Yojimbo. Both are excellent.

It helps to know that in Japanese culture neither star of that stature would be allowed to come out on top. Both, at the end, would be able to retain their dignity, although to a Western audience, this may seem frustrating, a cheat. Just to see 'Zatoichi meets Yojimbo' is enough, even if they never get into the much-promised duel. In 'Incident at Blood Pass', Katsu plays a disgraced physician. It is an excellent thriller, setting up great tension among a group of people, most not whom they seem to be, stranded in the snow. Of all the Mifune productions, that may be the most satisfying entertainment.

Europe called again, this time in 'Red Sun', a great price of popcorn entertainment. While it looks like Mifune in a Spaghetti Western, the director was actually Terence Young, director of there of the first four Bond movies. Young had a great pedigree but a terrible gambling addiction, his career slowly going down the drain as he took whatever job was offered for fast cash. Fortunately, he delivers an excellent Western, good enough to be copied later by Jackie Chan in 'Shanghai Noon'.

It is total fun to watch Charles Bronson deliver so many lines, unable for once to play the strong silent type against the brooding Mifune. Watching him get tossed around, his ass handed to him by Toshiro, is even better. Despite a somewhat preposterous premise, this movie really works. Unfortunately, due to complicated international finances, it is hard to find in America. It is one of the best selling Westerns of all time in Europe. By 1971 Mifune was doing television, something he would do on a regular basis for the rest of the decade.

Kurosawa, meanwhile, had created a production company with three other prominent directors. He was given the opportunity to deliver the first film to the market. Instead of anything remotely commercial, he chose something that I consider unwatchable. Mentally deficient teenagers in a garbage dump for two hours is an excruciating experience. Some people love this film; after one viewing, I avoid it at all costs.

It flopped so badly that the company crashed, financially ruining the other investors. Akira shut himself off from the public for eighteen months, then slit his wrists thirty times. It took years for him to recover, not only physically but emotionally. He received an offer to work from an unlikely source; the Soviet Union. Desperate, working in often freezing conditions, he delivered another masterpiece, 'Dersu Uzala'.  Hard to find in America due to distribution, it is both an adventure story and a deeply emotional tale of the relationship between a Russian officer and a primitive tracker.

The film was an immediate success, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. But the Japanese industry kept their distance. Kurosawa kept coming up with ideas, but they would offer only so much money. It was five long years of development hell, Akira killing time by doing detailed watercolor storyboards. His saviors came from another unexpected place, the directors of the New Hollywood.

Specifically, John Milius, Francis Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and especially George Lucas had gone to film school, being exposed to Kurosawa's genius during their formative years. Lucas was forthcoming in the debt 'Star Wars' owed to 'The Hidden Fortress.' It was time to pay it back, so money was found to allow Kurosawa to finish his rather grand epic samurai film. 'Kagemusha' signified that Akira was back, better than even, ready to conquer new ground.
 

'Kagemusha' was not without controversy. Shintaro Katsu was originally set to star, replacing Mifune as Akira's go-to guy, but it was short lived. Kurosawa kicked him out as too undisciplined, replacing him with Tatsuya Nakadai, a superior actor. There was speculation about Mifune's absence; to me, the part seems to be written for Nakadai, as well as the lead in 'Ran'. These films needed a haunted presence, exactly what Tatsuya excelled at. He had to act under layers of makeup, making him nearly unrecognizable. I doubt whether Mifune of Katsu would have consented.

Kurosawa created a film on the scope of David Lean. One can't help but be reminded of Mifune's 'Samurai Banners'; great movement of troops, banners flying, horses charging. 'Kagemusha', while formal, is a much better movie. Even though it is all tease, showing the formations for battle or the aftermath with all too little of the actual battle, it is the work of a master now back firmly in control.

Mifune, meanwhile, saw his position slowly eroding. He was older now, not as physical. The foreign roles, whether in 'Paper Tiger, 'The New Spartans', '1941' or 'Winter Kills', were barely worthy of his talent. Even when media magnate Haruki Kadokawa bought Toei, vowing to return quality samurai films to the cinemas of Japan, it was Sonny Chiba and his Japanese Action Crew that handled the sword play. Toshiro Mifune had to be included, but it was supporting roles now.

Ironically, Toshiro's last claim to international fame came from American television; 'Shogun'. He gets second billing. The mini-series was an international sensation. Mifune was literally the only person who could have played the part. He's not on screen that much, but he dominates every moment. He was the Shogun in the world's eyes.

Unfortunately, it was the end of being a first string star for Toshiro Mifune. He kept making movies outside of Japan, 'The Bushido Blade', 'Inchon',  'The Challenge'.  They were all terrible. Decades of hard drinking, three packs of cigarettes a day were catching up to him. He started having trouble remembering lines. His physicality was in the past.

Kurosawa had a third act that Mifune didn't. He made perhaps his greatest film, 'Ran', in 1985. This time the funding came from Europe, a ton of it. 'Ran' is spectacle on the greatest scale. I saw it in the theater when it first came out. On the wide screen, it was overwhelming, both visually and emotionally. Akira delivers all the violence implicit in 'Kagemusha'. Both films were about old age, both pessimistic. Akira didn't need to be any more in his personal life. He was on top.

He was embraced finally by Japanese culture, recognized as the master that he had always been. There were whiskey commercials, a television series, retrospective documentaries of his work. He managed three additional films, all very Japanese, all very private. When Akira died, he was a national hero.

Toshiro died first. There was even a videotaped reunion between the two. Neither had much to say, grunting at each other. Mifune remains the most renown Japanese actor, Kurosawa the most renown Japanese director. Together or apart, they created great art.

Japanese cinema moved away from the samurai genre, except for historical perspective. They moved to ninjas instead, less formal, no real basis in history. It enabled them to perform wire Fu, trampoline Fu, add sword & sorcery elements. They could compete with Hong Kong action cinema. Eventually, with the rise of Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, and John Woo, Hong Kong conquered the world, even penetrating Hollywood in a way that Japanese film never did. But they never matched the artistry of Japanese cinema at its best, which usually meant either Kurosawa, Mifune, or, if you were lucky, both a the same time.

Samaurai am I Part 1

A personal favorite of mine is Japanese samurai cinema. Like most people I was introduced to it by the films of Akira Kurosawa starring Toshiro Mifune. That in turn lead to discovering Japanese cinema during its golden age, 1948 until around 1970. The first part of this series will concentrate on Akira Kurosawa, one of the greatest directors in world history, because he is so well known and readily available in the United States. Later parts will talk about Toshiro Mifune's career beyond his 16 movie association with Kurosawa, with a final segment on Japanese cinema in the early 1970s as it descended into exploitation.

There was a film industry in Japan starting in the silent era. The country has isolationist tendencies, so while European and American imports were welcome, it was more important to have home-grown movies. The subject matter was also particularly Japanese, detailing stories from the past, many of which included tales of samurai. Even when the industry was taken over during the war years, which for Japan started in 1933, samurai stories with an emphasis on loyalty such as the 47 Ronin were popular.

During the occupation, the American forces purged the propagandists in the film industry, installing strict censorship. Cinema was a big money maker. Despite various strikes and other turmoil, this resulted in the creation of a number of new studios. Toho was the biggest, designed just a Hollywood movie factory, complete with star grooming and a career track for technicians. Other studios, such as Daiei and Shochika, also pumped out a great deal of product.

Akira came up to directing during the war years, producing Japanese propaganda, although he was lucky enough to get discrete scripts. Having been a writer, he could restructure a story to meet his needs. His first few films were not terribly special, with only a few flashes of his later style. Mostly, it was a limited budget with lots of close ups. After the war, he was again pressed into duty to create propaganda, this time for the US. He did better; 'One Wonderful Sunday', for instance, is all about a broke couple finding happiness thinking about the future, very well done.

Working with Toshiro Mifune caused an immediate upswing in his movie quality. 'Drunken Angel' was Kurosawa's first masterpiece, containing a feral performance from Mifune as a sick yakuza, with a typically incredibly physical climax. When Mifune auditioned as an actor, no other director wanted to work with him. Kurosawa saw something that he could use, but Mifune wasn't a one-trick pony.

The next movie, 'The Quiet Duel', has Mifune playing a doctor who contracts syphilis but gives all the medicine to his patients. Coming home from the war, he breaks off his engagement to his fiancé like a saint, saying nothing about his sacrifice. Their next collaboration, 'Stray Dog'. is a great noir/police procedural, with Mifune a detective whose gun is stolen when he falls asleep exhausted on a bus. His determination to find it before anyone gets killed dominated the movie, as does Toshiro's stoic performance.

'Scandal' in 1950 is a minor piece, with Mifune an artist angry at the press for misunderstanding his relationship with a young woman. It is with 'Rashomon' that the Kurosawa/Mifune partnership becomes transcendent, creating one of the greatest films in world history. In fact, the word 'rashomon' has become synonymous with a story told from various viewpoints, each one different in detail. A thing of beauty and mystery, simply done yet endlessly complex, it won great acclaim overseas. Yet Japanese audiences saw it as just another motion picture.

Mifune became an in-demand actor, appearing in eight films the next year, sometimes reaching a dozen productions annually, often in highly billed cameos. Kurosawa nearly torpedoed his career with the next movie, the endless 'Idiot' that had originally been over four hours long. He rebounded with another masterpiece, 'Ikiru', this time without Mifune, instead using the perfectly cast Takashi Shimura as a nobody bureaucrat dying of cancer who decides to do something meaningful with his life before he dies.

'Seven Samurai' was another world-wide hit, beginning Kurosawa's obsession with super-productions outside the scope of traditional Japanese films. It was a small and largely isolated business; only so much profit would ever be returned, but Akira wanted to work at a scale more in line with Hollywood. The movie is a classic, perhaps the best of the Kurosawa/Mifune collaborations, but the studio wasn't happy about either the amount of money or time it took to complete. When most directors in Japan were finishing three or four films a year, Kurosawa took two years on 'Seven Samurai'.

Kurosawa never did a typical samurai film; each of his genre pictures subverted stereotypes of class and even gender in ways obvious to Japanese audiences but perhaps not to western ones. Consequently, they did respectable business but weren't huge successes. Mifune's career was made not from appearing in Akira's productions; his defining role in the 'Samurai' trilogy, three films made between 1954 and 1956, cemented his super stardom. They are archetypical films, the life story of Musashi Miyamoto, with plot, themes, and even shots used countless times since.

'The Samurai Trilogy' has the feel and texture of a glossy Hollywood production, especially 'Gone With the Wind'. What it lacks is any surprises or subversion of genre expectations. In the short term, that was exactly what Japanese audiences craved. The role made Toshiro; for the rest of his career, except in Kurosawa films, he would be playing either that part or against that part. He became the equivalent to John Wayne in the States, a dominating presence. The work load was staggering.

Between the second and third installments of 'The Samurai Trilogy', Mifune completely transformed himself into an unrecognizable 70 year old for Kurosawa's 'I Live in Fear'. This may be his most daring performance, a patriarch crazed by the threat of nuclear war, trying to get his family to move to Brazil, away from trouble. The family doesn't want to go, eventually succeeding in having the old man declared insane. The last shot of Mifune pacing in his cell, the sun glaring through the window like an atom bomb explosion as he paces like a trapped wild animal, is unforgettable.

Mifune's roles expanded to military leaders, romantic partners, and police inspectors. He resisted gangster pictures, a popular genre that morphed in yakuza films in the 1960s and 1970s, creating many excellent films as well as launching actors such as Sonny Chiba. Unlike fellow Kurosawa star Takashi Shimura, he also didn't become involved in the emerging monster genre as well. There was something dignified about Toshiro; he became the one actor so identified with the essence of Japanese character that he had to be careful with his roles outside the Kurosawa films.

The next collaboration was another super-production, an adaptation of Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' called 'Throne of Blood'. Another stone cold masterpiece, it has perhaps the most physical acting in Mifune's career, a contrast from the frozen expressions on his face, based on traditional Noh theater. Considering competition from Orson Welles and Roman Polanski while not being able to use the dialogue, it remains the best screen version. The ending, arrows flying dangerously close to Mifune as he looks more and more like a hedge hog, is classic.

'The Lower Depths', the next Kurosawa film, is not one of my favorites. Too much like a filmed stage play, too depressing, it is another European adaptation. The Japanese press and public had a problem with Kurosawa's perceived 'Western-ness'. Between the John Ford and Sergie Eisenstein visual references and frequent use of non-traditional story lines, Kurosawa was seen as pandering to foreigners. There were many other directors at the time who had greater reputations or more successful careers.

Add to that Akira's increasingly dictatorial attitude - he was called the 'Emperor', not an altogether affectionate nickname - and the studios were perpetually unhappy with Kurosawa's work. Not so Mifune, who kept pumping out ten movies to every collaboration with Akira. His most popular film, 'The Rickshaw Man' in 1958, has never been released in America. With 187 credits on IMDB, the vast percentage of his work is unknown outside of Japan. He remains to this day the single most popular Japanese actor in history.

'The Hidden Fortress' was the one film by Kurosawa that almost fits the mold of a traditional samurai picture. Really about the moral awakening of a spoiled princess, in mortal danger, protected by a stoic warrior played by Toshiro Mifune, it still manages a few gentle subversions, such as telling the tale through two lower class peasants. This was famously adapted into the first 'Star Wars' film. In truth, George Lucas did enough rewrites of the script to erase the obvious borrowing, coming up with something original in his space opera.

'The Bad Sleep Well' was the first time Kurosawa used an undisguised Mifune in a contemporary film in over a decade. It was worth the wait. The film is about corporate crime and guilt, with the buttoned-down Toshiro biding his time getting vengeance in the most personal way. There are many unflattering comments about the successful post-war Japan in this film, a grim masterpiece. I can't imagine that it was too successful at the box office with that kind of attitude.

In 1961, Mifune appeared in 'Animas Trujano', a Mexican film that garnered a Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. 'The Seven Samurai' was remade into a blockbuster American western, 'The Magnificent Seven.' It seemed that the rest of the world was taking notice of the fine work done by these two. The best was yet to come; 'Yojimbo', a movie that changed world cinema forever.

For once, Kurosawa delivered a popcorn movie, one that anyone can sit through, enjoyable, seemingly simple. That he created the anti-hero, Mifune playing the part to perfection, was the grand subversion that most people missed at the time. Yojimbo is as bad as the bad guys. It takes half of the film to realize that there is any good trait in the main character. He's smarter than anyone else, that much is obvious. It is his motivation for profit that makes him a new kind of hero.

It's well known how 'Yojimbo' was remade as a spaghetti Western by Sergio Leone, using a second string television actor, Clint Eastwood, becoming an unexpected world-wide phenomenon. Nearly every male lead since 'Yojimbo' has some of that anti-hero in his DNA. Every one of Mifune's grunts, scratches, and shrugs creates one of the screen's most copied characters. Every samurai film in Japan after had to have at least one character exactly like Yojimbo, often played by Toshiro himself.

Toho pressed Kurosawa to make a sequel, and he did, except that 'Sanjoro' manages to be the anti-Yojimbo. Akira wasn't going to make more of the same. Instead, all the simple violence of the first one was subverted by both comedy and a philosophy of less-violence-is-better. Watch Mifune being schooled by the elder woman in that film, taking her criticism to heart, trying to steer the nine pupils who dog his every step away from rash action, is sheer poetry. On first viewing, I didn't like this one. Now, I see it as the better movie of the two.

Mifune was more popular than ever, even appearing in a delightful Sinbad movie, 'Samurai Pirate.' A ten minute cameo in the three and a half hour 'Chushingura', one of the many retellings of the 47 Loyal Ronin, earned him the biggest spot on the poster. He was getting older now, playing the teacher instead of the student. "High and Low', a tense tale of blackmail and intrigue, was the next Kurosawa collaboration. It was another great film, exploring an Americanized Japan, the rift between rich and poor, and notions of honor.

The collaboration ruptured some time during the long production of 'Red Beard'. It was an intimate film about a novice doctor being mentored by an older and wiser Toshiro, but Kurosawa wanted to film it like a super production. A complete town was built that is barely seen in the finished movie. Mifune had to grow a beard, not shaving for a year, making it difficult to appear in other films. To the Japanese, Akira seemed selfish, too ambitious. For the financial model of cinema everywhere but in Hollywood, he was spending entirely too much time and money on any single film. They might be masterpieces, made for future generations to enjoy. In the short term, always the prime consideration of any corporation, they weren't a good return on investment.

Both Toho and Mifune had enough of 'the Emperor' after 1965. Kurosawa would wander fifteen years in the wilderness before making a return to the Japanese film industry. Even then, the financing still wasn't there. Instead, it came from Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, European investors. Mifune was starting his own film production company, trying in his own way to both compete with Kurosawa while providing product for the market. In Japan, television was starting to erode the cinema audience. The golden age of Japanese film was ending. Exploitation was entering the picture.