Tag: Toshiro Mifune

Episode 54 – Yojimbo

, with special guest:

YojimboWe are embarking on a three movie exploration of the same story! First up is a return to the great Akira Kurosawa.  His film, Yojimbo, borrows heavily from American Westerns and American film noir.  But it has a badass samurai twist courtesy of Toshiro Mifune.  We enjoy this relatively light offering from the Japanese master filmmaker as a prelude to exploring the work of another, quite different master.

Next up, we’ll be watching A Fistful of Dollars!

Yojimbo (1961)
Yojimbo poster Rating: 8.2/10 (130,795 votes)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writer: Akira Kurosawa, Ryûzô Kikushima
Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Eijirô Tôno, Tatsuya Nakadai
Runtime: 110 min
Rated: Not Rated
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
Released: 13 Sep 1961
Plot: A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town.

Episode 17 – Seven Samurai

, with special guest:

Seven SamuraiIt is time for some Reel Education subtitled action courtesy of the great Akira Kurosawa’ s masterpiece, Seven Samurai! While Jena speculates there will be flips in this film, she finds nary a one.  Instead, she finds one of the greatest films ever along with some truly racist Japanese accents courtesy of Melissa and Tim!  Seven Samurai enter!  How many leave?  That would be a spoiler!

Seven Samurai (1954)
Seven Samurai poster Rating: 8.6/10 (365,525 votes)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writer: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni
Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima
Runtime: 207 min
Rated: Not Rated
Genre: Action, Drama
Released: 19 Nov 1956
Plot: Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, who gathers six other samurai to join him.

Our next episode will be all about The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!