Filmmaker reacts to Rashomon (1950) for the FIRST TIME!
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2022
- Hope you enjoy my filmmaker reaction to Rashomon. :D
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Original Movie: Rashomon (1950)
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Fun fact: Kurosawa edited his own films. He had gained extensive experience in many aspects of filmmaking while working as an assistant director and found editing to be the most satisfying part of the filmmaking process. He preferred to edit the film, bit by bit, at the end of each days filming. This often resulted in astonishingly brief post-production. Yojimbo (1961) premiered FOUR DAYS after shooting had completed.
That makes sense now. His shots are so well set up, but they also flow so well. A separate person editing would have to understand the director's vision so incredibly well to achieve these results. Thanks for sharing that. I have a rather long fairly rare interview with Kurosawa in the bonus features section of one of my DVDs but I haven't gotten around to watching it yet. I'm sure he discusses the editing process.
This is my absolute favorite movie of all time. I wrote an absurdly long paper about it in college. Can hardly believe someone is finally reacting to it.
can you send me your essay by any chance ?
We would love to read that paper man!! 😄😄😄
Would love to read your essay!!
Rashomon is based on a Ryūnosuke Akutagawa short story “in a grove” or “bamboo grove”. It follows the original story very closely with a few omissions. It’s a great study on how to adapt a story to film.
I find that Akutagawa was a terrific writer, especially of short stories. He actually also wrote a short story titled "Rashomon," but that one is quite different from this movie's story (which as you said is based on "In a Grove")...Also of note, Akutagawa's son (Yasushi) was a fine composer, for those who like classical music.
Kurosawa's "High and Low" is my personal favorite of his movies, it's loosely based on American crime writer Ed McBain's novel "Kings Ransom"; about a rich businessman who must decide whether to pay the ransom when his chauffeurs son is accidently kidnapped by a criminal that thinks he is the rich man's son.
Mifune gets to play a more subdued 1960's executive but is no less magnetic in his performance, and the Police descending into the depths of post-war Tokyo investigating the crime is a visually amazing depiction of the haves and have-nots of a society that had so recently been shattered and tried to rebuild (without solving any of its social problems) by literally just trying to pave over the poor and powerless from up on high.
By the end of the movie, you understand that neither the "High" nor the "Low" of their society is actually truly "good" or "evil" but they are all stuck together in a world not of their own making.
Only Kurosawa could take a pulpy American police procedural, transport it to Japan and diagnosis the ill's of his whole society through it.
Yes, “High and Low” is a riveting movie, highly recommended!
You would probably also love The Bad Sleep Well, such an amazing film. High and Low (actual title' Heaven and Hell') is one of my all time faves, so good, and half the film takes place in one room!
Ikiru and Dreams are my favourites from him. High And Low is great though
Kurosawa's crime films are so underrated! High and Low is one of my favorites, too.
@@parsasadri8015 Dreams is very high on my list of Kurosawa’s films.
One of the things I've always loved after years of watching Rashomon is how well they used natural light in the flashbacks, with PAs holding mirrors among the trees to reflect dappled light on the actors, sometimes leaving us with the shadows of leaves across them. That shot that pans down from the treetops to the wife sitting by the stream is another one that feels like a painting or manga panel come to life, just pure art
I had the biggest smile on my face when your notification popped into my inbox with THIS MOVIE!
Akira Kurosawa was a genius, and Toshiro Mifune completely disappeared into whatever role he played.
Hahaha ayyy happy to hear the love!!
Despite being made in 1950, one of the greatest films ever made and certainly a candidate for best foreign film of all time.
RAN was after “Lawrence of Arabia”, but I’m sure that cinematography got a lot from Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”
Other Kurosawa films worth checking out… Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Throne of Blood, Ikuru, and Star War-- I mean, The Hidden Fortress.
Ran is a telling of the Japanese legend which inspired Shakespeare to write "King Lear".
@@SRG1966 Ran is King Lear mixed with elements of the life of Mori Motonari- who was a contemporary of Shakespeare. I doubt Shakespeare would have even heard of him (it was only that same century the west knew about Japan at all). The story of King Lear is from the medieval tales of Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century.
This all a lot like how most people don't know that Beowulf is actually an Anglo Saxon remake of bladerunner.
All worthy. And, according to George Lucas, Hidden Fortress was his inspiration for Star Wars. I heard that many years ago and it started my Kurosawa journey.
I've seen everything except Hidden Fortress out of that list. And 100%.
Kurosawa is honestly one of the directors that taught me how to truly appreciate filmmaking…and he’s now one of my favorites
My film history teacher made us watch this, at first I don't think I really got the deeper meaning and themes but when making an essay and rewatching it I really came to appreciate how the movie portrays it's themes and how subjectiveness is shown in the camera movements
You just can't be a film guy and not dive into Kurosawa. He is the Alfred Hitchcock of Japan. All of his movies work on multiple levels. This one is so well written by showing that perspective is everything. We all have our own filter on how we see the world and what happens around us.
Even the Simpsons refer to this movie, Marge says something like "Well you liked the movie Rashomon" and Homer answers "That's not how I remember it" or words to that effect. 😁
Such a great joke
Awesome!! Kurosawa is one of the all time greats! He influenced Scorsese, Spielberg, G. Lucas, just to name a few. I highly recommend Yojimbo (1961). Toshiro Mifune is always fantastic.
Watch Yojimbo, then watch A Fistful of Dollars.
And Yojimbo even has a prequel "Sanjuro" that is nearly as good by Kurosawa, again starring Mifune. Worth a watch as well.
There's a great video on RUclips of Kurosawa being presented with an honorary Oscar at the 1990 ceremonies by Spielberg and Lucas. It happened to be Kurosawa's birthday too, so they got his Japanese collaborators on satellite screen half the world away to lead the audience in singing him Happy Birthday (you can see Scorsese in the audience too haha). Kurosawa's speech was terrific, so humble (including saying "...I don't feel I understand cinema yet" :D :D), simply-stated but perfect.
Spielberg and Lucas produced Kurosawa's movie Kagemusha and made sure that it got mainstream worldwide distribution. It was their way of paying the man back for how greatly he had influenced them.
Every show that does the "multiple sides to a story" episode owes that to Rashomon
To me, this movie exemplifies the saying, "There are three sides to every story. Your side, My side and the truth."
There is actually a Rashomon effect ruclips.net/video/M33BC3ZLFG4/видео.html
I would respectfully disagree agree. In my opinion the film shows that in a situation like what happened in the grove, where all you have is the testimony of others and no objective viewpoint like what you could get from a security camera, then perhaps there is no truth at all.
If I may use an example, the identity of Jack the Ripper. Of course it had to be someone, but the identity of killer is still unknown. We have eye witness accounts of the whereabouts of the victims down to the hour, perhaps even the 1/4 hour they were murdered, but we still go into this narrative merely assuming every eyewitness is not only telling the truth, but has the same context, values, eyesight and state of mind. It all becomes relative.
This is the beauty of the unreliable narrative, there is no truth, only what you can discern from what you’ve been told and whether what you’ve been told was true in the first place.
Once I saw Seven Samaurai I went on a bender that lasted for years. Rashomon is definitely one of my favorites and I'm so happy you're watching it!! I had his whole Criterion collection at one time. His work definitely opened my mind to all other foreign films.
OMFG, I literally got chills & goosebumps when I saw that you just posted a reaction to this film! I can't wait to see this! You are going to love this film. It's an absolute MUST for any film student.
Thanks for being willing to these foreign films. These reviews are fantastic. Mifune, the bandit, a couple of years after this film played Miyamoto Musashi in the Samurai Trilogy (1954-55) Mifune and Kurosawa are the Goats
Please do watch those films. They're an awesome trilogy of movies.
Akira Kurosawa is the only director I consider an equal to Stanley Kubrick. Every Kurosawa work is a masterpiece.
Akira kurosawa is far better than Kubrick, no disrespect to Kubrick, he's one of my favorite..
Hell, EVERY shot is a masterpiece.
Nah, kubrick is the most overrated director in cinema history. Kurosawa's movies are also overrated aged films.
@@issi529 what a shitty opinion, clearly these 2 aint for you. go watch marvel..
@@issi529 anyone who says Kubrick and Kurosawa are overrated knows absolutely nothing about the art of cinema.
I am an actor. In my College Theater Dept. we produced a production of Rashomon. It was a stage script based on the Japanese stories that this film is based on. We built a revolving stage to change the location in the bamboo forest. It was a lovely production. The only flaw was that we had no Japanese actors audition for the show. I got to play the Woodcutter in this production and was honored by the opportunity. This was my introduction to Akira Kurosawa and I fell deeply in love with him. Ikiru (To Live) may be my favorite film of his.
I think that "Rashomon", "living" and "Seven Samurai" are the best three of Akira Kurosawa.
Kurosawa puts so much thought into each shot, the composition, blocking, the use of the weather in each scene, camera movement, it's just incredible there are no unmotivated actions in any single shot of a Kurosawa film. Personally I think he is one of the most influential directors of all time and is my personal favourite.
I find this to be one of the rare perfect movies out there. Glad you're finally watching this 👍
Akira Kurosawa was the first person to point the camera at the sun.. seeing it glide thru the trees… and clearly the structure of this movie was ahead of it’s time.
Gotta say..really inspiring seeing more of his work.
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Have a great day everyone!
Shogun Assassin next plz
then Master of Flying guilottine
You should definitely check out Akira Kurosawa's Dreams. A collection of short movies (they even colored them) and each one of them is deeper than most things you've seen in the past 2 decades.
@@krs5267 Agree. Defo one of the best endings I've ever seen in films.
@@1981_Reacts The Lone Wolf and Cub movies it was clipped from are better - Shogun Assassin is like if you made a movie out of the the start of A New Hope, with the rest of the movie being Empire Strikes Back and Return of The Jedi in one, messed up the story, and turn Darth Vader into The Emperor.
Trust me, once you watch the original movies and not the West Remix (Shogun Assassin), you'll never go back.
There’s a reason his body of work is so ubiquitous in film school curriculums. Great stuff. Love the channel, bro. Keep it up!
Great reaction! I'm so happy to see you reacting to some of world cinema's greatest classics. It's no coincidence that you noticed similarities to film noir--Kurosawa made several of them. Stray Dog, which came out just the year before Rashomon, is about a cop dealing with the guilt that his stolen gun is used to commit murder. It also stars Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura, two of Kurosawa's most frequent collaborators. He made two more noirs in the 60s, The Bad Sleep Well (loosely based on Hamlet) and High and Low, both masterpieces sadly overshadowed by his samurai films.
It is a shame that Kurosawa's contemporary films are so frequently overshadowed by the period ones. Drunken Angel, Stray Dog, Ikiru, High and Low, the Bad Sleep Well are all so good and prove how adept he was at telling a story from any point in time. I'm really hoping we get High and Low one of these days
4:22 "Kurosawa's recognition and ability to adapt war and death and almost this endless cycle of killing into a lot of his films, it's morbidly beautiful."
This was just 5 years after WW2. Like Hayao Miyazaki an' lotta other famous creatives who lived through WW2, Kurosawa had seen some shit.
I'll always remember Kurosawa saying he was keenly interested in why people aren't able to be happy, and that a lot of his films are explorations of variations of that question. When you're of a war-surviving generation, that just comes from life experience, but I've thought in a lot of his films, when most characters are perpetually unhappy, war might be involved, but the root answer always involves the personality and character of that person themselves. So much of it is inflicted by characters themselves or trading off with other characters with tragedy all around. Ran is a perfect example.
I love that you love this director, he is truly an innovator and I need to see more of his films (I've only seen "Dreams"). I searched and actually can't believe you've never reacted to any of Baz Luhrmann's beautiful and hyper stylized films
Kurosawa is a legendary for a reason, his films are exciting and breathtakingly filmed. You do have to be ready for that edge to it though, most of his best films have some degree of just profound sadness in the state of humanity and youve got to be ready to immerse yourself in that.
Yojimbo, Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai, Ikiru, etc, I am here for Kurosawa Reactions :D
Sanjuro is a must see. The final showdown changed anime and manga forever.
One of my favorite films. I got lucky in high school and had an amazing video rental place near me with an awesome foreign film section.
Thanks for this, great sharing of both your reaction and thoughts. As always, stay awesome, stay genuine.. much love
YES! Heading to Patreon to watch this with you. Haven't seen it yet either.
Brilliant director. Definitely to check out. 7 Samurai, Ran, Throne of Blood, Ikiru, and Dreams.
The start of a brilliant actor/director team. Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. Many amazing films together.
James, near the end of this reaction you said, "You would have to go mad to make sense of that" -- which immediately made me think of another GREAT Kurosawa film, I Live in Fear, in which one of the characters says, “In a mad world, only the mad are sane.” That is a recurring theme in his incredible movies.
I highly recommend Yojimo, Sanjuro and Seven Samurai! Definitely worth watching, and reviewing!
James, if I could recommend one film for you to watch, it would be Kobayashi’s “Hara-Kiri”. Absolutely incredible film.
Yojimbo and Sanjuro, Hidden Fortress, and of course Seven Samurai are some other Kurosawa samurai movies that are good. Yojimbo was the basis for A Fistful of Dollars (starring Clint Eastwood, which is basically a remake of it) to the point where Kurosawa even sued the director of that. And it's been forever since I've seen Hidden Fortress but it's usually cited as an inspiration for Star Wars, from the general plot setup to even iirc the screen wipes that Star Wars is famous for.
I watched this movie in writing class and it blew my mind!
When I was a stupid little kid I was fascinated by old movies, and especially by old foreign movies. Saturday afternoons and evenings on old school PBS in the 70s was obscure foreign movie time on Minneapolis PBS (channel 2, represent). Hoovered that shit up like it was Cap'n Crunch. I was insatiable. Trying to punch way over my weight. What can I say?
I watched this movie when I was probably 7 or 8. I had no idea what was happening. I was enthralled, fascinated, ensorcelled. I was a weird kid. I was very precocious but not nearly adult enough to get what was going on.
When I watched this as an adult I saw it through my 25(?) year old eyes and my 7 year old eyes simultaneously. It was kinda spooky doubled experience.
Toshiro Mifune. He was the lead actor in most of Kurosawa's films.
Literally had to watch this for a class I was surprised to see you pop up (the timing)
Takashi Shimura was a favorite actor of Kurosawa. Shimura played Kambei in Seven Samurai (1954), Sanada in Drunken Angel (1948), Detective Sato in Stray Dog (1949), Kikori in Rashomon (1950), and the lead in Ikiru (1952), and that is in addition to roles in The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961), Sanjuro (1962), and Kagemusha (1980). Shimura also acted in several other notable classic of Japanese cinema, including Throne of Blood (1957), Kwaidan (1965), and Samurai Assassin (1965).
Rashomon won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1951.
I recommend Ugetsu(directed by Kenji Mizoguchi), which won the Silver Lion Award at the 1953's festival.
I would REALLY love you to watch Onibaba. A unfairly forgotten masterpiece of Japanese historical-psychological-horror-drama.
It's so wonderful. I love that movie in almost every shot.
Although there's a criterion collection edition of it so I don't know if you could really call it forgotten. Not well known maybe.
If we really push maybe we can get him to do House.
In a similar vein, Kobayashi's Kwaidan is the most beautiful collection of ghost stories ever filmed. A great Halloween double feature!
So good to see Kurosawa reactions. Toshiro Mifune is my favourite actor too btw - he lights up Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and of course Yojimbo (which I love to watch back to back with its unofficial remake Fistful of Dollars).
I recommend some Kobayashi movies too (the original Hari Kiri or the sublimely dreamy Kwaidan).
Then there's Sword of Doom which stars Tatsuya Nakadai (the old King in Ran) against Mifune - possibly the best chanbara movie ever made - the katanas really swish in that one!
Kurosawa is amazing. The "Every Frame a Painting" video on him is worth a watch. The fact that he made adaptations of Shakespear's works is also pretty cool.
Love seeing you do more of the classics. I’d really love to see you do an analysis of Buster Keaton’s “The General”. Not only is it a masterpiece of early cinema but due to the fact they never renewed the copyright it’s now public domain. So you could upload a full viewing of it 👍🏻
It was wild to watch Mifune totally embrace the psycho character after playing such a badass in Yojimbo and Sanjuro
Fun fact: Hero, the movie you already reacted to, is a kind of remake of Rashomon. Zhang Yimou's idea was to replicate the "Rashomon Effect", of multiple views of the same situation, but using colors to delimit each version.
One of my favourite Simpson’s jokes:
"Come on, Homer, Japan will be fun! You liked Rashomon."
"That's not how I remember it."
You should watch Kagemusha by him. Absolutely and truly amazing, in every aspect. Absolutely heartbreaking too. My favorite of his films by far.
YOOOO LETS GOOO. James you must do Derzu Uzala by Kurosawa. That one is so unfairly underrated. It’s an absolute masterpiece!!!
The wood cutter is Takashi Shimura, who was the head samurai in The Seven Samurai, and is in several other Kurosawa films.
The main character in Ran was played by Tatsuya Nakadai, who was as big as Mifune and frequently stared along side of Mifune.
The shot in this film, where we are following the wood cutter through the woods and the camera tracks in front of him and then swings around him as he turns with the twist of the path was accomplished with the camera on a rail cart that made a kind of S across the path. It’s a subtle work of art.
I would like to recommend Hell in the Pacific. It’s a WWII drama staring Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune as a US Navy aviator and an Imperial Japanese Navy officer who find themselves stranded together on a jungle island. They are the only cast in the whole film and it is excellent. Interesting too because Marvin fought as a Marine in the pacific and Mifune was in the Japanese Army in the pacific as well, so both veterans of the war who actually fought on opposite sides.
Takashi Shimura's best turn for Kurosawa imo is Ikiru, a beautiful movie
@@RussellCHall agree 100%. That is probably my favorite Kurosawa film, though that’s a hard call to make; I kind of love them all.
My favorite is “Ikiru” as well…such a profound and beautiful movie…Amazing that Takashi Shimura could play the downtrodden old bureaucrat of Ikiru, but also the noble, confident leader of the Seven Samurai.
Awesome choice James! It’s so cool you do Asian cinema and more Arthouse ones like Wong Kar Wai as well. They never get close to the views of the other movies but you’ll get so much out from watching them.
Kurosawa was hugely influential in the West. His movies has been remade into multiple Westerns. His dynamic camera movements were unlike anything at the time. So much to learn from Kurosawa’s craft. His set pieces and action sequences are still unmatched.
This is the film that changed the course of my entire life when I saw it at 21! Kurosawa is the GOAT 🐐
Great choice! Definitely here for some more Akira Kurosawa reactions 🔥
Happy to see that! 🙏🏽
Lawrence came out a long time before RAN but Kurosawa had been making films for many years by then and many cite him as an influence going way back
Notice that in some spots the music is Western, e. g. Maurice Ravel's _Bolero_ (often used in films to symbolize lust or passion), but orchestrated with traditional Eastern instruments.
I highly recommend seven samurai and high & low 2 of my favorites from kurosawa
Fantastic! You'll see this movie referenced all the time in all areas. You can be reading something about politics and they'll say it's a Rashoman type of situation or moment.
Awesome! Thank you! Will track down the Ran reaction.
One of my favorite film is so brilliant
I can’t wait till you react to Seven Samurai! One of the greatest films ever made!
Fantastic movie. So good even in the small details, like when the witness cowers when he is accused of stealing the tanto knife. We never get a confirmation so it is another story we don't get the truth of and makes us doubt his version of events. Even he is apparently not an objective narrator.
Technically, I loved how intentional the camera moved. Back in that time cameras were still often used very statically. Also the lighting in the forest, the use of edge lighting and shadow is so very well done giving a very natural feel in a time when studio lights were big and bulky and you could often see their harsh shadows (as you unavoidably can see in some temple scenes).
Can't wait for the next Kurosawa reaction...
Kurosawa was a real artist. Can’t wait to see you watch the rest of his work. His stuff is a master class in filmmaking
Toshiro Mifune was a great actor in the filmography of kurosawa, his live is like a movie, i inveted you to search more about this man, sorry for my gramart.
Rashomon is a landmark film in that it is the first of its kind to tell a story from a different perspective, depending on who the character is telling the story. Whenever a film utilizes this method, it is known as the Rashomon effect. One such recent film is Hero with Jet Li, which used colors to accentuate the person’s point of view.
One of the best films on the after affects of ww2 on Japan
You mentioned Kurosawa doing an adaptation of Vagabond, and while Kurosawa never covered the story, the Vagabond manga is actually based on a famous novel "Musashi", which was adapted into a trilogy of films (the so-called "Samurai trilogy") starring Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Yojimbo, Sanjuro) directed by Hiroshi Inagaki. So it's not QUITE the dream but it's basically as close as we're ever going to get.
Inoue is also famously a stickler for how he allows his works to be adapted, so Vagabond getting any adaptation outside of its original manga may be a pipe dream
appreciate this comment! gonna place it on the poll
Seven Samurai is my favorite Kurosawa film. One of the best movies ever made.
Happy to see you reviewing Kurosawa. This film is pronounced like Rahshowmoan all syllables with the same emphasis. Ran is pronounced like the name Ron.
Thank you James. I'm doing well.
ugh. Sorry I missed this the day it came out James. After having seen Ran, I knew you'd love this. Kurosawa is my alltime favourite. Period. Next up: Seven Samurai.
It never rains lightly in a Kurosawa film…lol. Can’t wait until you watch Seven Samurai. Such a classic.
Needless to say, Kursosawa is one of the greatest of all time. The few films of his I’ve seen are truly devastating
This film is such a classic. I greatly admire Kurosawa's films. I think that you'd admire Dreams.
this movie made me realize where tarantino got his story structure for pulp fiction
Not counting the Godzilla and other kaiju films I watched as a kid, this was the first Japanese film I watched when in college. It has left its mark. There's so much greatness here. One of the deluxe Kurosawa DVDs I watched had an extra feature with Machiko Kyo and some of Kurosawa's assistants reminiscing about the making of this film. I'm sure James would find it fascinating.
This and '12 Angry Men'(1957) would be a good two-picture program IMO.
Both 50's B&W, both a kind of court drama, both great classic textbook of cinematurgy, but images are completely different. And sum total not over 2.5h.
Akira Kurosawa is really one of the Directing GOATS tbh
Weare living in a Rashomon world where truth is personal
I have several Kurosawa films on Criterion Collection DVD. I really need to start digging into them.
Man Akria Kurosawa is the goat . A few of his films are the reason we have Clint Eastwood . Movies like Yojumbo . Most of his movies are love letters to William Shakespeare. But with a Samurai twist The biggest one being Throne of Blood which is his take on Macbeth .
I haven't seen the film yet, but I always here Amazing things about Akira Kurosawa's "IKIRU". (1952)
For good reasons! It’s definitely my favorite Kurosawa
Ikiru is Takashi Shimura's best performance for Kurosawa imo (even including Kambei from Seven Samurai, as blasphemous as that may be too some)
Ikuru is top tier Kurosawa, which basically makes it untouchable. It might be the most heartbreaking movie of all time.
I think the first time I was exposed to a Rashomon-style plot was the courtroom scene in the Simpsons episode "Bart Gets Hit By A Car".
So next: Yojimbo, then The Seven Samurai, both being remade into A Fistful of Dollars and The Magnificent Seven, respectively.
I don't want to be a jerk, but there is no way "RAN" could have influenced "Lawrence Of Arabia", because Lawrence was shot in the 1960's and RAN in the 1980's.. But, Kurosawa was heavily influence by many Western directors, specifically John Ford and even David Lean. I've got "Rashamon", "Ran" and "Lawrence" in my Blu-Ray DVD collection, plus a few more of Kurosawa's films, "Seven Samurai", where Toshiro Mufune, the bandit, Takashi Shimura, the wood cutter and Minoru Chiaki, the priest, were all members of the seven, "The Hidden Fortress", one of George Lucas' models for how to tell the story in "Star Wars", and "Throne Of Blood", "Yojimbo" and "Sanjuro", more Kurosawa/Mifune goodness. "Rashamon" won the foreign language Oscar the year it was released, and deservedly so. A story told from four different perspectives, and each one different from the last. Truly a work of art.
This film was so groundbreaking that many TV shows have done a take on it, from _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ to _Archie Bunker's Place._ My favorite, though, is the _Farscape_ episode "The Ugly Truth" where the characters' versions of events give the audience a glimpse into what they really think of each other.
❤️ Kurosawa and everything Japanese culture. If you haven’t you oughta go to Japan. Start with Kyoto and see all the temples, gardens, Kabuki theatre etc.
Add to your Kurosawa list Throne of Blood (1957) a retelling of MacBeth, and Seven Samurai (1954) both with Toshiro Mifune.
Facts disintegrated into contradicting information; this new age has born somehow, we don't know how - some will try to ignore it, some will try to exploit it, but one thing is for sure: we have to take it home and live with it, and see what it will grow up to.
Kurosawa saw the future we live in.
Amazing film
Never seen throwing a sword at someone to finish them off? Time for Ninja Assassin!
Yes... yes... YES!!!
Two best Kurosawa movies imo are Seven samurai and Ikiru.
If you havent seen Ikiru? seriously, the film is just so life affirming,
different from its a wonderful life but just as effective in its own way.
You should watch one of the more modern samurai movies like "The Hidden Blade", "Twilight Samurai", "Love And Honour" or "Ame Agaru" (After The Rain?).
Not good for reviews, but if you want to see one of the most known tv series ever from Japan, watch "Oshin". It took me 2 or 3 episodes to get into it, but i never cried that much watching anything (maybe except for "One litre of tears"). Asian cinema really knows how to make viewers make feel depressed.
watch Ghost Dog: the way of the samurai ...besides being a great movie, the main character(forest whitaker) walks around with a rashomon book. Wish they continued the story.