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.
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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).
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.
Mifune swashbuckles his way through this supremely entertaining samurai adventure, the plot inspiration for Star Wars.
Mifune is a driven detective in Kurosawa’s bravura Tokyo noir. “A bona fide masterpiece” (Time Out).
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.
Archival Print
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).
Mifune swashbuckles his way through this supremely entertaining samurai adventure, the plot inspiration for Star Wars.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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).
BAMPFA Student Committee Pick
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).
A kidnapping becomes a moral dilemma for executive Mifune in “one of the best detective thrillers ever filmed” (New York Times).
Kurosawa’s spirited follow-up to Yojimbo finds Mifune leading a band of comically inept samurai. “A superb parody” (Donald Richie).
BAMPFA Student Committee Pick
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).
Mifune is a dutiful samurai whose subservience is about to end. With music by Toru Takemitsu and an unforgettable supporting turn by Tatsuya Nakadai.
A kidnapping becomes a moral dilemma for executive Mifune in “one of the best detective thrillers ever filmed” (New York Times).
Mifune is a dutiful samurai whose subservience is about to end. With music by Toru Takemitsu and an unforgettable supporting turn by Tatsuya Nakadai.