KurosawaFest - Weekend One24 March 2008
So, this weekend was the first phase of KurosawaFest. In lieu of an actual write up about the movies I managed to see (and I saw the most of anyone who doesn’t actually live at the venue) I’ve decided instead to blatantly steal Paul Ford’s six word review concept and apply it to the following synopses:
Sanshiro Sugata – Learn Judo instead of drowning yourself.
Most Beautiful – Drumming, volleyball increase production; not weeping.
Sanshiro Sugata II – Judo humiliates the comical western stereotypes.
They Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail – Did we follow this one? Noh.1
Stray Dog – Fuck, it’s hot. Where’s my gun?
Scandal – Lawyers: a danger. A real danger.
Rashomon – What is true? Hey, a baby!
The Seven Samurai – This cannot be improved. Fuck you.
I Live in Fear – He should’ve moved to Brazil alone.
Throne of Blood – Forest spirits and wives: equally treacherous.
The Lower Depths – Mass suicide sounds better and better.
The Hidden Fortress – Where Lucas got every good idea.
Unsolicited observation: Toshiro Mifune gets all the press and deservedly so. (For a total mind-blower watch The Seven Samurai and I Live in Fear consecutively and see how long it takes you to realize which character is Mifune in the latter.) But no one ever talks about Takashi Shimura, and that’s a shame. He was in all but two of the twelve movies listed above, and I never got tired of him. He definitely has more of a character actor vibe, compared to Mifune’s star power, but he was such a dependable, versatile presence to build a movie around. It’s no wonder Kurosawa kept putting him to work.
More information about KurosawaFest can be found on the Internet.
1 Totally stole this one from Wendy’s Twitter.
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Andrew
25 March 2008, 12:00 #
Right on. Your reviews of <em>Stray Dogs</em> and <em>Scandal</em> are perfect.