Direction: Akira Kurosawa

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Kyôko Kagawa · Yutaka Sada · Takashi Shimura

Synopsis It is the story of Gondo, a shoe company executive (Toshirô Mifune) planning a boardroom intrigue to gain control of the company. He has raised the capital for his plan, when word comes that his son has been kidnapped for...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Takashi Shimura · Yoshio Inaba · Seiji Miyaguchi

Synopsis In Seven Samurai (1954), a small farming village in 16th-century Japan is repeatedly raided by bandits. Desperate for protection, the villagers hire seven ronin (masterless samurai) to defend them. Each samurai brings unique skills and personalities, forming a reluctant bond...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Maksim Munzuk · Yuriy Solomin · Svetlana Danilchenko · Vladimir Kremena

Synopsis Dersu Uzala (1975) follows the journey of a Russian explorer, Captain Arseniev, and his team as they map the uncharted wilderness of Siberia. During their expedition, they encounter Dersu Uzala, a nomadic Nanai hunter with profound survival skills and deep...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Yûzô Kayama · Yoshio Tsuchiya · Kyôko Kagawa

Synopsis In the Nineteenth Century, in Japan, the arrogant and proud just-graduated Dr. Noboru Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama) is forced to work in the Koshikawa Clinic, a non-profit health facility ruled by Dr. Kyojio Niide (Toshirô Mifune), a.k.a. "Red Beard". "Red Beard"...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Takashi Shimura · Nobuo Kaneko · Kyôko Seki · Makoto Kobori

Synopsis In To Live (1952), directed by Akira Kurosawa, the story follows Kanji Watanabe, a middle-aged bureaucrat who discovers he has a terminal illness. Faced with the grim reality of his limited time, Watanabe embarks on a quest to find meaning...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Tatsuya Nakadai · Akira Terao · Jinpachi Nezu · Pîtâ

Synopsis In Ran (1985), an aging warlord decides to divide his kingdom among his three sons, hoping for a peaceful transition. However, his decision ignites a brutal power struggle, fueled by betrayal, ambition, and vengeance. As alliances shift and chaos erupts,...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Isuzu Yamada · Takashi Shimura · Akira Kubo

Synopsis In Throne of Blood (1957), a samurai and his ambitious wife navigate a web of prophecy, betrayal, and supernatural forces after a forest spirit foretells their rise to power. Set in feudal Japan, the film reimagines Shakespeare's *Macbeth* with striking...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Tatsuya Nakadai · Yôko Tsukasa · Isuzu Yamada

Synopsis Yojimbo (1961) follows a wandering ronin, or masterless samurai, who arrives in a small, desolate town torn apart by two rival criminal gangs. Seeing an opportunity to rid the town of its corruption, the clever and resourceful samurai manipulates both...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Machiko Kyô · Masayuki Mori · Takashi Shimura

Synopsis In Rashomon (1950), a haunting tale unfolds as a crime is recounted through multiple, conflicting perspectives. Set in 12th-century Japan, the story begins with a woodcutter, a priest, and a commoner seeking shelter from a storm at the Rashomon gate....

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Tatsuya Nakadai · Tsutomu Yamazaki · Kenichi Hagiwara · Daisuke Ryû

Synopsis In Kagemusha the Shadow Warrior (1980), directed by Akira Kurosawa, a petty thief is spared execution due to his uncanny resemblance to a dying warlord. Recruited as a double, or "kagemusha," he must impersonate the powerful leader to maintain the...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Tatsuya Nakadai · Keiju Kobayashi · Yûzô Kayama

Synopsis In Japan circa Eighteenth Century, nine young men decide to present an accusation of corruption in their clan to the local superintendent. However, the group is betrayed, but the ronin Sanjûrô Tsubaki (Toshirô Mifune) saves them from the superintendent's men....

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Takeshi Katô · Masayuki Mori · Takashi Shimura

Synopsis A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing The Bad Sleep Well. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect in exposing the...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Minoru Chiaki · Misa Uehara · Takashi Shimura

Synopsis In The Hidden Fortress (1958), two greedy peasants, Tahei and Matashichi, stumble upon a hidden gold treasure guarded by General Rokurota Makabe. Unbeknownst to them, the gold is meant to fund the exiled Princess Yuki's escape to a safe territory....

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Takashi Shimura · Keiko Awaji · Eiko Miyoshi

Synopsis Murukami, a young homicide detective, has his pocket picked on a bus and loses his pistol. Frantic and ashamed, he dashes about trying to recover the weapon without success until taken under the wing of an older and wiser detective,...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Martin Scorsese · Akira Terao · Mitsuko Baisho · Mieko Harada

Synopsis Dreams (Akira Kurosawa's Dreams) (1990) is a visually stunning anthology film composed of eight vignettes, each born from the director's own dreams and fantasies. Through a series of surreal and poetic narratives, the film explores themes of nature, humanity, and...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Takashi Shimura · Toshirô Mifune · Reisaburo Yamamoto · Chieko Nakakita

Synopsis A drunken doctor with a hot temper works in a village whose most prominent geographical feature is a disease-ridden sump. Businesses and social life are infected by the yakuza, or mob. The leading gangster in the village comes to the...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Takashi Shimura · Miki Sanjo · Chieko Nakakita

Synopsis Kyoji Fujisaki, a young doctor, contracts syphilis from a patient during wartime surgery. After the war, he returns to his fiancée and rejects her without explanation. His nurse Rui learns the truth, however. When Fujisaki encounters the man who had...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Yoshitaka Zushi · Kin Sugai · Kazuo Katô · Junzaburo Ban

Synopsis Episodes from the lives of a group of Tokyo slum-dwellers: Rokkuchan, a retarded boy who brings meaning and routine to his life by driving an imaginary streetcar; children who support their parents by scrounging or by tedious and ill-paying endeavours;...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Isuzu Yamada · Kyôko Kagawa · Ganjiro Nakamura

Synopsis In a slum flophouse, a collection of beggars and thieves bewail their lot in life, and Osugi, the landlady, fights with her sister, Okayo, over the man they both desire, the thief Sutekichi.

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Tatsuo Matsumura · Kyôko Kagawa · Hisashi Igawa · George Tokoro

Synopsis This film tells the story of professor Uehida Hyakken-sama (1889-1971), in Gotemba, around the forties. He was a university professor until an air raid, when he left to become a writer and has to live in a hut. His mood...