Akira Kurosawa: Where to begin?

Question

Akira Kurosawa, often dubbed as the master of Japanese Cinema, a man respected by most of the directors in the world. He directed more than 25 films, lots of classics, different genre... As always with these kind of famous filmmakers, it's hard to know where to begin. What would you suggest?

Answer 1

Another approach would be to discover Kurosawa the way the world at large did: start with Rashomon. This is one of his finest and most unique films, and the one that put him on the map so to speak, winning the Grand Prix at the Venice International Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1951. The film is so influential, it's entered the language; the Rashomon effect refers to conflicting eyewitness reports of a crime. This is because the story concerns a rape and murder and the wildly diverging accounts of several people (including the perp, the raped woman and the spirit of the murdered man!).

Or you could start with my personal favorite, High and Low. It's really two films in one; the first half is a tense psychological thriller, the second an exciting police procedural. The mise en scene is particularly stunning in the first half.

[Shameless plug] You can learn more about the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa in my books Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves and Warring Clans, Flashing Blades.

Answered by Patrick Galloway

Answer 2

You can't go wrong with "Seven Samurai"! I suppose you can't go wrong with any of his movies, but if you haven't seen any of his films before I would start with "Seven Samurai" followed by "Ikiru". If you like "Seven Samurai" more you can move onto his other samurai films like "Throne of Blood", "Yojimbo", "Hidden Fortress", etc. If you like "Ikiru" more you can move onto his other films with contemporary settings like the "Stray Dog", "High and the Low", "Bad Sleep Well", the Eclipse Postwar Kurosawa Set, etc. 

Generally I would watch his 1950s work first before watching the earlier and later stuff, and watch his color films last!