Ikiru (1952)

A disaffected civil servant in late middle-age (Takashi Shimura) learns that he has terminal cancer and a few months left to live. After the initial shock and panic wears off, he sets out in a last-ditch attempt to find a proper purpose and meaning to his life.

Ikiru is Akira Kurosawa's 13th feature film as director, and was his first film after his disastrous experience making The Idiot - which his studio sliced down in post-production and arguably badly weakened in the process. I have no idea if the bruising gauntlet had to run with The Idiot affected his ability to direct Ikiru, but it strikes me as a fairly messy and inconsistent film - and a fair drop down in quality from his widely regarded classics Rashomon and Stray Dog.

There are tonal problems with the film, which swings from bleak satire to uplifting melodrama and back to satire. It is very possible that these shifts in tone were wholly intentional; if so, they strike me as a failed experiment. By trying to make two sorts of film in one there is an extent to which Kurosawa fails to deliver with both. General critical opinion seems to disagree with me entirely, as Ikiru is regularly held up as the 'lost classic' of Kurosawa's career. Personally - and in the end all film reviews are personal ones - Ikiru simply failed to fully impress me. Kurosawa had done better, and would go on to do much better, in the future.

The Idiot (1951)

Kameda (Masayuki Mori) is a naive man who suffers from epilepsy. He returns home to Hokkaido after almost being shot by the firing squad in Okinawa. There he meets Taeko (Setsuko Hara), a former mistress to a rich business man, who is now so unpopular in town that her former lover has offered a 600,000 yen dowry to anyone willing to marry her. Kameda's growing relationship with Taeko puts him at odds with Adama (Toshiro Mifune) a passionate and brooding man he met on the train to Hokkaido.

Following the local popularity of Stray Dog and the international success of Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa partnered with the Shochiku movie studio - who had funded his earlier film Scandal - on his dream project. He had been a fan of Russian literature for some time, particularly Fyodor Dostoevsky, and thus embarked on a lengthy adaptation of Dostoevsky's The Idiot. In adapting the novel he relocated the action from 19th century St Petersburg to contemporary Hokkaido.

Unfortunately the end result is probably one of the weakest of Kurosawa's films thus far: it is slightly confusing, it regularly drags to interminable lengths, and the melodramatic antics of its characters lead to an egregious amount of bad over-acting. The more interesting question than whether or not The Idiot is any good is actually why it wound up so mediocre.

Rashomon (1950)

'I just don't understand,' mutters a woodcutter (Takashi Shimizu), and he shelters under the half-ruined eaves of the Rashomon gate with a priest (Minoru Chiaki) and a passer-by (Kichijiru Ueda). The woodcutter has just returned from a trial by the local magistrate into a rape and murder. There he heard testimony from the accused - the notorious bandit Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune) - as well as the victim of the assault (Machiko Kyo) and, via a medium, the victim of the murder (Masayuki Mori). The problem is that these three different versions of events don't add up. Two of them have to be untrue, however all three seems improbably enough that it is possible - indeed likely - that they are all untrue. 'I just don't understand,' mutters the woodcutter again. The audience would likely agree.

Rashomon is one of the most significant feature films of all time. It is significant on three counts. Firstly it was the film that broke Akira Kurosawa out to an international audience, giving him a strong reputation as a creative artist and auteur that he never received in his own country. Secondly it was the first Japanese film to receive mainstream international attention at all; it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and received an honorary Academy Award the following year. Finally it introduces the idea of an unreliable narrator to narrative cinema. That is possibly its greatest achievement of all.

Scandal (1950)

A painter named Ichiro Aoe (Toshiro Mifune) meets a pop singer named Miyako Saigo (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) in the mountains. She has missed her bus, so he offers her a ride back to her hotel on his motorbike. They are photographed together by an opportunistic paparazzo, and a tabloid magazine prints a lurid - and false - story about their love affair. A furious Aoe hires a lawyer (Takashi Shimura) to sue the magazine, but his lawyer may not have his best interests at heart.

1950 was the year Akira Kurosawa made the transition from talented director to international sensation, thanks to his phenomenally successful jidai-geki drama Rashomon. Before he reached that career milestone, however, he directed this: his tenth feature film, and a sharp indictment on Japan's increasingly powerful news media. While generally regarded as one of his lesser films - and that's an assessment with which I'd have to agree - it does pack a fairly solid punch in its first half. The social issues with which Kurosawa tackles here remain depressingly relevant today, 65 years after the film was released.

Stray Dog (1949)

During a crippling Tokyo heatwave, a homicide detective (Toshiro Mifune) has his gun stolen right out of his holster while taking the tram. When the stolen gun is used to murder someone, the desperate rookie teams up with a veteran detective (Takashi Shimura) to track the killer down.

I've been slowly rewatching Akira Kurosawa's films in chronological order, watching his directorial and storytelling styles develop and gradually mature. There have been some excellent films among his first eight works: Sanshiro Sugata, The Men Who Tread in the Tiger's Tail and One Wonderful Sunday. His ninth film, his 1949 police thriller Stray Dog, is Kurosawa's first masterpiece. It is his third collaboration in a row with actors Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura, and here the working relationship pays remarkable dividends. This isn't just an outstanding movie: it's one of the most significant motion pictures ever made.

The most obvious derivative work at which to point is David Fincher's 1995 thriller Seven, which shares so many similarities that it's obvious one film is heavily indebted to the other. It doesn't stop at Seven, however: Stray Dog is the first-ever film to match two cops - one a cynical veteran, the other an upstart rookie - and send them off to fight crime. If you've ever watched a buddy cop movie in your life, there's a chance you have Akira Kurosawa to thank for it.

The Quiet Duel (1949)

Dr Kyoji Fujisaki (Toshiro Mifune) is an army doctor during the Pacific War. When operating on an injured soldier, he accidentally cuts his finger and is infected with syphilis. Six years later Kyoji continues to practice medicine under his father (Takashi Shimura) while keeping his unsuspecting fiancée (Miki Sanjo) at bay and ensuring his ongoing infection remains a secret.

Akira Kurosawa's eighth film is a full-bore melodrama, replete with overwrought emotion, sobbing fits and lingering pained glances. It marks Kurosawa's first break from Toho Studios; this film was produced by rival production house Daiei instead, while a production workers' strike ground the former studio to a halt. The director brings along with him several regular collaborators, including actors Shimura and Mifune. This was his second film with Mifune after Drunken Angel, and this time the actor takes the lead role with Shimura relegated to a supporting position.

Sadly this is Kurosawa's least effective film to date, with a story too simple to last the full 95 minutes and characters whose over-the-top emotional turmoil destroys most of the opportunities for realism or nuance.

Drunken Angel (1948)

Sanada (Takashi Shimura) is an alcoholic doctor working in a post-war Tokyo suburb. One night a local hoodlum named Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifune) burst into his surgery, having been shot in the hand. While treating his wound, Sanada also diagnoses him with tuberculosis. While Sanada desperately tries to force Matsunaga to rest and recover from his disease, the troubled gangster is too focused on maintaining his position when a rival returns to Tokyo from prison.

Akira Kurosawa's seventh film is a wonderfully atmospheric film noir. It also marks the first collaboration between the director and the actor Toshiro Mifune. A mass walk-out of talent from Toho in 1947 left its directors scrambling to find new talent. A fellow director told Kurosawa about an impressively talented 28 year-old actor, Mifune, and Kurosawa sneaked into an audition session to see him perform. So impressed was he with Mifune that he cast the charismatic, highly physical actor in Drunken Angel, and subsequently cast him in a leading role in another 15 features. Their 16-film collaboration is one of the most exception actor-director partnerships in movie-making history.

One Wonderful Sunday (1947)

Yuzo (Isao Numasaki) and Masako (Chieko Nakakita) meet in Tokyo one Sunday morning for a date. They have only 35 yen between them. Over the course of a single day they face numerous challenges as they wander the streets of post-war Tokyo.

One Wonderful Sunday is Akira Kurosawa's sixth feature film as director, and marks another sharp change in style. His previous film, No Regrets For Our Youth (1946), was a serious melodrama set over a period of years. One Wonderful Sunday is a much brighter picture. It is still at its heart a drama, but it's filled with brightness and humour and takes place over the course of a single day.

It's a highly episodic affair, as Yuzo and Masako bum around Tokyo looking for inexpensive - or preferably free - things to do. They browse through a display home, play baseball with a group of children, go to the zoo, try and fail to buy cheap tickets for a symphony concert, attempt to meet up with one of Yuzo's war buddies, have a quiet cup of tea, and take a stroll through the park. They also struggle with self-doubt, get treated like second-class citizens by more monied Tokyo residents, also break off their engagement, and generally get depressed about life in the ruins of the Pacific War.

No Regrets for Our Youth (1946)

Akira Kurosawa's fifth film, No Regrets for Our Youth, was his first to be made following the end of the Pacific War. With Japan's military government completely disbanded, and a new wave of democracy flowing over the embattled country, Kurosawa was freed to follow his own story ideas for the very first time. No longer required to direct propaganda pictures, or express a government-approved nationalistic agenda, Kurosawa immediately rushed in the opposite direction. No Regrets is an actively political and unexpectedly left-wing polemic inspired by the Kyoto University incident of 1933. It is also a remarkable character study into a young woman's difficult life over a turbulent 13 years of Japanese history.

The Kyoto University incident in a nutshell: in the 1930s Japan was governed by an increasingly nationalistic and militarily controlled government. Within this growing environment of right-wing propaganda and military expansionism, law professor Takigawa Yukitoki delivered lectures on the need for the judiciary to better understand the social roots of political agitators before condemning and sentencing them in trials. In May 1933 the national education minister announced that Professor Takigawa was suspended from teaching due to his advocating Marxist philosophy. The remaining faculty at Kyoto University resigned in protest, students boycotted classes, and protests were organised. The government responded by firing Takigawa from his post, and cracking down on the protests. Careers were destroyed. Lives were ruined.

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945)

Let's have a look at Akira Kurosawa's fourth feature film, The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, which is to be honest more interesting for when and how it was produced than what it's actually about. Kurosawa originally wanted to direct a large-scale feudal epic titled The Lifted Spear, however it required battle scenes with samurai on horseback. With Japan losing its war with the Allies there simply weren't any horses left in or near Tokyo for Toho Studios to use. As a low-budget back-up the studio suggested Kurosawa adapt the kabuki play Kanjincho (The Subscription List). The film was ultimately shot almost entirely inside a studio with only a brief trip to the nearby Imperial Forest to shoot some establishing scenes.

The play, based on a true event from the 12th century, followed a disgraced feudal lord as he crossed a heavily guarded border with his retinue disguised as itinerant monks. Kurosawa was not keen on making the film, but its subject matter of feudal loyalty and bravery in the face of certain defeat was appealing to Japan’s military authorities. Kurosawa wrote a screenplay for the film in three days, keeping the narrative relatively close to the original play. The only significant addition he made was to introduce a comic porter, to be played by popular comedian Kenichi Enomoto – an actor on whose films Kurosawa had worked as an assistant director through the late 1930s.

Sanshiro Sugata Part II (1945)

Movie goers concerned that Hollywood produces too many needless, money-hungry sequels should feel reassured that it's not just a contemporary phenomenon - nor is it an exclusively American one. After directing his second film, the 1944 propaganda picture The Most Beautiful, Akira Kurosawa was unwillingly roped into making a sequel to his first. The original Sanshiro Sugata had been a smash hit with Japanese audiences, and with morale dipping as Japan started to lose the war in the Pacific the military-led government was keen to see another rousing populist hit in the cinemas.

Sanshiro Sugata was an engaging martial arts drama set in the 1880s about a headstrong young man - the titular Sanshiro (Susumu Fujita) - becoming a judo master. Sanshiro Sugata Part II picks up the story a few years later. Sanshiro is disgusted to see a commercial fighting ring set up where an American boxer fights all manner of Japanese martial artists for money. At the same time the two brothers of Higaki - the man Sanshiro defeated at the end of the original film - have arrived in town looking for revenge.

The Most Beautiful (1944)

A few weeks ago I watched and reviewed Sanshiro Sugata, the debut film from legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Watching it was part of a new mid-term plan: to actually watch and review all of Kurosawa's feature films in order, and get a proper understanding of his style and his particular talent for filmmaking and visual storytelling. Sooner or later I'll get to his most famous works like Seven Samurai and Rashomon, but here we are with his second film: the 1944 drama The Most Beautiful.

Of course in 1944 Japan was fighting a war in the Pacific against the USA, Australia and other allied nations. As a result there was a strong demand from the government for propaganda pictures: films that would keep the general population hopeful and driven towards the war effort. Unlike other major directors like Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa was not enlisted in the Imperial Army. Instead he was required to fight the war from Toho Studios. Initial plans were for Kurosawa to direct an action film about Japanese fighter pilots, but as the war developed and Japan's situation became grim he was instead told to write and direct this: a drama about a dormitory of young women who manufacture precision optics for the armed forces.

Sanshiro Sugata (1943)

In the mid-1950s Japanese film finally started to get international recognition, largely through the films of Akira Kurosawa. His films struck a chord with international festival audiences, and he soon become the most famous Japanese director in the world - although, perhaps surprisingly, he was never quite as enthusiastically embraced within his own country.

Films like Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Rashomon remain immensely popular to this day, however Kurosawa did direct another 27 films - many of which I haven't seen. I figured it was time to redress that imbalance, beginning with his 1943 directorial debut Sanshiro Sugata. The film is an adaptation of the Tsuneo Tomita novel, in which a brash young man named Sanshiro travels to Tokyo in order to learn jujitsu - but winds up learning the new martial art of judo instead.