![]() ![]() ![]() But at its core, Ikiru is about life and death - about what it means to have lived, and to have lived well, and about what it means to die with some measure of grace. Perhaps Kurosawa’s most affecting film, Ikiru (To Live) is an acidic indictment of inept bureaucracy (a common theme in Kurosawa’s works), a tale of the bittersweet trials of parenthood, and an exploration of familial and occupational sacrifice (and how often it goes unappreciated or ignored) to name just a few. Taketoki, like his literary predecessor, cannot abide this loss of control, and he soon learns the price of such defiance in the form of a dark truth: a future foretold is not a future escaped, and the more we struggle, the more tangled the net becomes. Such elemental powers are everywhere in Throne of Blood, coolly spinning the web of our destinies, and leaving us powerless to change them. Fuji, Throne of Blood showcases Kurosawa’s expert use of nature, not just as atmosphere, but as a character itself: winds whistle over dark soil, the rain pours through sunlit trees, and dense fog never seems to lift – reminders of grand forces untamed by, and unconcerned with, human beings. Indeed, he only stumbles when he makes the mistake of performing a truly compassionate act, an error that would surely condemn him – were it not for the three feet of steel at his hip.Ī loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Throne of Blood transplants the bard’s masterpiece from Scotland to ancient Japan, where Mifune steps into the role of Washizu Taketoki, the striving would-be king who is either doomed by fate or “murdered by ambition,” depending on your point of view. ![]() Sanjuro is just the man for the job, of course, and he navigates the moral haziness of the wretched little village with incomparable style. The village which Sanjuro stumbles across isn’t a place for decent people, hence its savior will need to be someone less-than-decent, or at the very least, someone who appears to be. But in its tale of salvation through violence and deceit - of achieving virtue through unvirtuous means - it also owes some of its moral murkiness to film noir. Yojimbo is fun, often funny, and also features the best soundtrack of any Kurosawa film. Starring Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune as "Kuwabatake Sanjuro,” a wise-cracking, world-weary samurai who finds himself in a small village under siege by criminal gangs, Yojimbo was both inspired by American Westerns and established many of the iconic tropes that would later become staples of the genre (largely via Sergio Leone’s uncredited 1964 remake, A Fistful of Dollars): the lawless town, the laconic, mysterious anti-hero, the shifting loyalties everywhere. ![]()
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