Charisma opens to an apparently familiar pattern of an overworked, rumpled, and unfocused officer named Goro Yabuike (Koji Yakusho) napping on an empty bench at police headquarters and being awakened by a superior officer to discuss the progress of his arrest case. One day, he is called to an abandoned house in the countryside in […]
An unassuming man in a plaid sport coat walks with a confident gait through the streets and removes a section of pipe from an exposed water line in a tunnel. The scene cuts to a shot of the same man calmly pacing the floor of an anonymous hotel room with a drink in hand before […]
Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) has lived a long and prosperous life of a feudal warlord, his reign marked by devastating territorial battles, humiliation of the vanquished, and brutal punishment of those who flout his authority. One day, in the presence of neighboring feudal lords and attendants, he announces his decision to step down from power […]
Given the expanse of the Siberian wilderness as his cinematic canvas, Akira Kurosawa responds with the visually hypnotic, deeply affecting portrait of nature, friendship, and survival in Dersu Uzala. Based on the journals of Russian explorer Vladimir Arseniev, the film opens to a forest that is being cleared for development, and Arseniev searching for an […]
High and Low never wavers under the assured direction of Akira Kurosawa. It is, all at once: a procedural crime story, a social commentary on the casualties of industrialization, the redemption of a man’s soul. A wealthy executive, Gondo (Toshiro Mifune), hosts an informal board meeting in his insular residence atop a hill, overlooking the […]
In 16th century Japan, protracted feudal wars have created a prevailing sense of lawlessness. Bandits have organized into formidable armies that scavenge the countryside in search of villages to loot. One morning, a band of thieves arrive at the outskirts of a farming community, but is persuaded to delay their attack until the barley has […]