Samurai Rebellion: Toshiro Mifune, Screen Icon

June 15–August 30, 2017

In films by Akira Kurosawa and others, Mifune showed astonishing vitality and range. We present a dozen of his iconic roles, plus a new documentary.

Read full description

  • Rashomon

  • Stray Dog

  • Throne of Blood

  • High and Low

  • Mifune: The Last Samurai

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Rashomon

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1950

    Archival Print

    Thursday, June 15 7 PM

    An act of violence is replayed through the eyes of witnesses and protagonists, each seeing a different thing, in “one of the most brilliantly constructed films of all time, a monument to Kurosawa’s greatness, and a landmark in film history” (James Monaco).

    View Details

  • Drunken Angel

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1948
    Saturday, June 17 8:30 PM

    Doctor meets tubercular gangster in the slums of postwar Japan in this noirish tale, the first film in the long collaboration between Kurosawa and Mifune.

    View Details

  • The Hidden Fortress

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1958
    Sunday, June 18 4 PM

    Mifune swashbuckles his way through this supremely entertaining samurai adventure, the plot inspiration for Star Wars.

    View Details

  • Stray Dog

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1949
    Wednesday, June 21 7 PM

    Mifune is a driven detective in Kurosawa’s bravura Tokyo noir. “A bona fide masterpiece” (Time Out).

    View Details

  • Seven Samurai

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1954
    Friday, June 23 7 PM

    A ragtag group of samurai band together to protect a village from bandits in Kurosawa’s masterpiece, often cited as one of the ten best films ever made.

    View Details

  • Rashomon

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1950

    Archival Print

    Sunday, June 25 5 PM

    An act of violence is replayed through the eyes of witnesses and protagonists, each seeing a different thing, in “one of the most brilliantly constructed films of all time, a monument to Kurosawa’s greatness, and a landmark in film history” (James Monaco).

    View Details

  • The Hidden Fortress

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1958
    Friday, June 30 7 PM

    Mifune swashbuckles his way through this supremely entertaining samurai adventure, the plot inspiration for Star Wars.

    View Details

  • Seven Samurai

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1954
    Sunday, July 2 6:30 PM

    A ragtag group of samurai band together to protect a village from bandits in Kurosawa’s masterpiece, often cited as one of the ten best films ever made.

    View Details

  • Mifune: The Last Samurai

    Steven Okazaki
    United States, 2016
    Thursday, July 6 7 PM
    Steven Okazaki in Person

    Oscar-winning Bay Area filmmaker Steven Okazaki pays tribute to the ferocious charisma and larger-than-life talents of the great Mifune in this supremely entertaining documentary.

    View Details

  • I Live in Fear

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1955
    Saturday, July 8 8:30 PM

    Mifune gives a daring performance as an eccentric patriarch with a neurotic fear of the atomic bomb. “The final effect is overwhelming, and perhaps Kurosawa’s most sweeping statement on the human condition” (Film Forum).

    View Details

  • Throne of Blood

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1957
    Wednesday, July 12 7 PM

    Kurosawa’s Noh-influenced version of Macbeth is “the most brilliant and original attempt ever made to put Shakespeare on screen” (Time). Mifune is paired with the legendary Isuzu Yamada in “a partnership of titans” (Film Forum).

    View Details

  • The Bad Sleep Well

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1960
    Thursday, July 20 7 PM

    Kurosawa charts corporate evil as a company is torn from within by scandal, greed, and lust. “Enron meets Hamlet” (Film Forum). “Better than Shakespeare” (Francis Ford Coppola).

    View Details

  • Yojimbo

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1961

    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    Saturday, July 22 8:15 PM
    Introduced by Steven Okazaki (July 22 screening only)

    Mifune is a sly, amoral mercenary in a town ruled by killers in Kurosawa’s tongue-in-cheek anti-epic. “A visually faultless and highly sophisticated satire on violence and human weakness” (Sight and Sound).

    View Details

  • High and Low

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1963
    Wednesday, July 26 7 PM

    A kidnapping becomes a moral dilemma for executive Mifune in “one of the best detective thrillers ever filmed” (New York Times).

    View Details

  • Sanjuro

    Friday, July 28 8:45 PM

    Kurosawa’s spirited follow-up to Yojimbo finds Mifune leading a band of comically inept samurai. “A superb parody” (Donald Richie).

    View Details

  • Yojimbo

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1961

    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    Wednesday, August 2 7 PM
    Introduced by Steven Okazaki (July 22 screening only)

    Mifune is a sly, amoral mercenary in a town ruled by killers in Kurosawa’s tongue-in-cheek anti-epic. “A visually faultless and highly sophisticated satire on violence and human weakness” (Sight and Sound).

    View Details

  • Samurai Rebellion

    Masaki Kobayashi
    Japan, 1967
    Friday, August 18 8:15 PM

    Mifune is a dutiful samurai whose subservience is about to end. With music by Toru Takemitsu and an unforgettable supporting turn by Tatsuya Nakadai.

    View Details

  • High and Low

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1963
    Thursday, August 24 7 PM

    A kidnapping becomes a moral dilemma for executive Mifune in “one of the best detective thrillers ever filmed” (New York Times).

    View Details

  • Samurai Rebellion

    Masaki Kobayashi
    Japan, 1967
    Wednesday, August 30 7 PM

    Mifune is a dutiful samurai whose subservience is about to end. With music by Toru Takemitsu and an unforgettable supporting turn by Tatsuya Nakadai.

    View Details