Stray Dog

The first Akira Kurosawa movie I was introduced to was The Seven Samurai when I rented it from the video store after finding out it was the basis for one of my all-time favorite movies, The Magnificent Seven.  Now I loved the American remake that was transported to the west, but I liked Kurosawa's original with samurai fighting it out with bandits in 16th Century Japan. Reading up about it, I found Samurai is generally accepted as Kurosawa's best, but I was still curious to see what else his movies have had to offer.

A handful of movies later, I'm pretty sure I started at the top and have been going downhill since. I haven't hated any of the movies I've watched, but I really haven't loved them either.  The Hidden Fortress was good, I enjoyed High and Low, but Yojimbo and Throne of Blood both disappointed.  Now there's a third disappointment with 1949's Stray Dog, a departure from the usual Kurosawa samurai/historical flick.  Instead of roving samurais saving villagers or pitting gangs against each other, it's a crime drama that features two of the director's biggest stars, but in the end it never completely gels together.

A young police officer, Detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune), is heading home after a day at the shooting range when he realizes he's been pick-pocketed by a trashy thief who snares his department issued pistol.  He chases after him but is unable to catch him.  He reports the missing gun and is told to do everything possible to get his gun back.  At first, he has no luck as he explores the seedier parts of town, but when he teams up with a veteran officer, Detective Sato (Takashi Shimura), things start to come together.  But as the investigation continues and cases mount up where Murakami's gun is the involved weapon, can they track down the gun in time before more bodies start to pile up?

I've written before about Mifune who has become one of my favorite actors even when the movies he is in aren't always up to his performance.  Extremely physical but also able to nail the softer, quieter scenes, Mifune had quite a range as an actor.  I'd watch him read a telephone book if I had the chance, and even here as a young 29-year old actor he shows off the talent that would make him possibly Japan's biggest star.  His Murakami is extremely driven to fix the mistake he's made, but it's never over the top.  It is a more subdued part for the typically very verbose, even over the top actor but one I really liked even if we get to know very little about the detective.

Without any real semblance of humor, the pairing of Mifune and Shimura is one of the earliest examples I can think of with the buddy cop pairing.  The handling of the veteran cop vs. the inexperienced newbie is as tried and true as just about any relationship in a movie dealing with cops.  Shimura had this really quiet intensity about him in everything I've seen him in, and this intensity works to perfection with Mifune.  One scene especially stands out as they visit Shimura's home where his wife and kids are waiting for him. The two detectives talk about the nature of the job, of chasing society's slimiest and dirtiest and how it affects the way you look at the world.  Shimura's seen everything crime has to offer while Mifune still has just a bit of an innocent edge to him.  The pairing works well as it would several other times in Kurosawa movies, including Seven Samurai.

As much as I liked the two lead actors, they can't carry the movie through its more sluggish parts.  Reading the plot synopsis, I was intrigued about a story that followed two detectives as they ventured into the seediest parts of the criminal underworld.  But for a story that has a definite quasi-documentary feel to it, the pacing is awful.  An incredibly slow-paced montage shows Mifune's Murakami unsuccessfully looking for a black market arms dealer, dragging on and on.  That's the whole movie.  There's no urgency as the duo follows clues, talks to suspects, all in hopes of getting their hands on this one pistol.  It reminded me of a slow, extended episode of Law and Order but without any real payoff.

Now with the quasi-documentary feel, Kurosawa puts the camera right there in the filthy alleys, the poorly lit backrooms, the rank-smelling shanty towns, and gives a great feel of what detective work is like.  All his characters are always sweating, and you get a sense that everyone had to have smelled to the high heavens in this investigation.  The setting is great, but the story doesn't quite keep up.  Positives are here, especially Mifune and Shimura, but this was still a disappointment, more so because of the talent involved.

Stray Dog <---TCM clips (1949): **/****

Yojimbo

When someone tells you a movie is a classic, what's your reaction?  I'm usually at least curious, but there's that part of me that remains leery.  Just because it's considered a classic doesn't mean I'll like it.  Maybe I'll hate it.  As much as possible though, I try to keep an open mind, especially when this classic spawned one of my favorite westerns in a remake.  So with all that said, why did I dislike 1961's Yojimbo so much?

From Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, Yojimbo was a huge success that led to a sequel and a remake three years later with 1964's Fistful of Dollars, the first of three Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone pairings. 'Fistful' is the weakest of the so-called 'Dollars trilogy,' but it's still an entertaining movie and is a good jumping off point into the spaghetti western genre.  And almost scene for scene as I found out, Fistful doesn't divert from the source movie.  But almost from the start, I was bored and struggled getting into it.  I can only chalk that up to knowing exactly where the story was heading.  Let's think this over some.

Set in Japan in the late 1800s, a samurai named Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune) walks into a desolate town to find a situation ripe for the picking that could make him a very rich man. The samurai visits a restaurant run by Gonji (Eijiro Tono) who fills him in on everything he should know. The town is run by two men, an older gangster named Seibei (Seizaburo Kawazu) who runs the local brothel and Ushitora (Kyu Sazanka) who sells sake from his brewery.  Both sides have offered jobs to anyone who will work for them, each side accumulating a gang of low-lifes and thugs.  Sanjuro steps right into the middle of the situation, doing his best to have each gang wipe the other one out, all the while being paid for his services.

As I've tried to watch more movies from outside the U.S., I've yet to struggle with a movie because of subtitles -- I typically groan when people say they don't want to watch a movie because they'll have to read -- but I struggled here.  I can attribute some of that to the setting, but it's more than that.  I have no background with any of the cast other than Mifune, and everyone else is dressed in a similar fashion.  So when names start getting thrown around, I had trouble keeping things straight about who hates who and why.  Thankfully I've seen Leone's 'Fistful' because otherwise I would have been completely lost.  I don't mean to sound like that ignorant American reviewer, but I had trouble differentiating the cast and in general, keeping up.

Of the handful of Kurosawa movies I've seen, I have never been able to call the director boring in his techniques, but for Yojimbo I'm awfully close.  He films in black and white -- which is fine -- but the one-street set starts to run together.  Everything looks the same and eventually looks boring.  I don't know if shooting in color could have helped, but that's just an idea.  Kurosawa is a patient filmmaker, letting characters and scenes develop at their own pace, but that pace here is incredibly slow.  'Fistful' at 99 minutes is shorter than Yojimbo's 110 minutes, but the difference is huge in terms of pacing and any sort of energy.  Shots go on and on without an end in sight.

The bright spot for me is not surprisingly Kurosawa favorite, Mifune as Sanjuro, the wayward samurai traveling the roads of Japan with his sword and little else.  While everyone else around him acts in this over the top, very theatrical style, Mifune is calm to the point where he even looks bored in certain parts.  He's clearly an inspiration for Eastwood's laid back, laconic character in the Dollars movies.  Like few other movie stars, Mifune has that ability to force everyone watching the movie to keep their eyes on him and only him.  A huge physical, intimidating presence on-screen, the star also handles his own stunts -- a few carefully choreographed sword fights that are amazing in their realism.  I didn't really care for the movie, but I'm always going to recommend Toshiro Mifune.

Because everything I read about Yojimbo raved about the movie, I felt like I missed something on first viewing.  That many people don't call a movie a classic for nothing.  The potential is certainly there, but I struggled to get through this one.  There's always positives, especially Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai as a gun-toting samurai, but there are more negatives...at least for me.  A disappointing end result for me, but maybe one I'll revisit in the future.

Yojimbo <----trailer (1961): **/****    

High and Low

Watch enough movies with the same actor, and you start to look at that person in the same way.  It’s like John Wayne in westerns and war movies, Clint Eastwood playing tough cops, or Johnny Depp always playing eccentric, quirky characters.  It feels like a big set-up because eventually they will play against type from their more familiar roles.

Take Toshiro Mifune who teamed up with director Akira Kurosawa on and off for years, most of the time playing an antihero in feudal Japan.  These parts were usually samurais, soldiers, and killers, and Mifune was good at what he did in becoming one of Japan’s most famous movie stars.  So when he plays a rich CEO in modern times, there’s a bit of a transition period to get used to him playing such a unique role.  The part is in 1963’s High and Low, a police procedural drama that rises above the typical cop investigation movie.

Putting the final touches on a takeover of his company, Kingo Gondo (Mifune) receives a startling phone call. His son has been kidnapped, and the ransom totals 30 million yen which eats away at the funds he had accumulated to become the majority stockholder in his shoe company.  Gondo brings in the police without alerting the kidnappers, but soon a second call follows.  It isn’t Gondo’s son, but his chauffeur’s son instead that is being held captive.  Now Gondo faces a tough decision; pay the ransom and be ruined financially or refuse to pay and keep his position atop his company?

I can’t tell too much more about this movie without giving away some major plot twists so from here on in SPOILERS are everywhere. Stop reading if you don’t want the ending spoiled.  That plot summary is only the first 70 minutes of a 140-minute movie.  Shocker, but Mifune’s Gondo pays the ransom, but more on that later.  The second half of the movie is the police investigation to catch the kidnappers.  Nothing feels false in the smallest sense in the second half as the police, led by Det. Tokura (Tatsuya Nakadai) follow up on any and all possible leads that might lead to closing the case.  It could be excruciatingly dull, but because Kurosawa’s story gave little in the way of hints in the first half, the viewer is trying to piece together the case before the police do.

Even with a movie that is well over two hours, the story never lags.  The first half, set almost entirely in the Gondo mansion, is heavy on the dialogue with long scenes of conversation with no cuts, just the camera focusing on the actors.  The cast is top notch with a lot of characters involved, the Gondos, Aoki the chauffeur, the police, the wait staff, all trying to figure out how to end the case.  The second half though has a better flow to it as the investigation develops.  I’m struggling to identify why that’s so, and all I’m coming up with is the story moves around instead of being relegated to a house, and more than that, a single, large room.  The police move all over the region looking for the kidnappers as the evidence and clues continue to come together.

Seeing Mifune as an upper class business man is a little startling (I kept looking for a samurai sword) but it works pretty well with all things considered.  Gondo is an incredibly intelligent businessman who sees that the company he loves is being torn away from him.  He develops this nearly perfect plan to gain a majority control, and not that a kidnapping is ever good, but this particular one comes around at the worst possible time.  Mifune gives this man a heart when it’d be easy to root against him.  When he realizes his son wasn’t the one kidnapped, it’s easy to see that for a split second Gondo realizes he’s in the free and clear…if he so chooses.  But as the situation dawns on him, it’s really a lose-lose situation.  No matter what he does, it won’t end well for him.

Mifune’s strong performance dominates the first half of the movie in the Gondo mansion with more of an ensemble cast taking over in the second half with the investigation.  Nakadai as Detective Tokura, the officer running the case, is good in a thankless part as a cop with no personal background, he’s just a dogged professional trying to get the job done.  Other worthwhile performances include Yutaka Sada as Aoki, Gendo’s chauffeur, Kyoko Kagawa as Gendo’s wife, Isao Kimura, Kenjiro Ishiyama and Takeshi Kato  as three fellow detectives helping Tokura’s case, and Tatsuya Mihashi as Kawanishi, Gendo's possibly treacherous right hand man.

With the movie as a whole, it’s a change of pace for Kurosawa and his fans who have only seen his samurai movies typically based in feudal Japan.  I didn’t love ‘High and Low’ like I do some of the director’s other movies, but I did like it a lot.  A classic?  Maybe not, but as far as police procedurals go, you’ll be hard-pressed to come up with one that’s better.

High and Low <---trailer (1963): ***/****

The Hidden Fortress

It would be hard not to be influenced by other movies if you work in the business in some capacity; actor, director, writer, whatever.  In 1977, George Lucas had a huge mega-hit on his hands with Star Wars and the subsequent Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, not to mention the three more recent prequels.  I'd read enough times that with the storyline of Star Wars Lucas was influenced by a Japanese film, 1958's The Hidden Fortress, and couldn't help but think that it was an odd choice for a science fiction movie.

The Japanese film is from director Akira Kurosawa and does have a storyline similar to Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Co. trying to save Princess Leia from Darth Vader and the evil Empire...albeit in Japan of course without Jedis or Wookies (unfortunately).  It is an exciting movie that has a handful of main characters -- some more likable than others -- working together to save the life of one of their own.  There is also betrayal, a huge treasure of gold, and the ever present battle for honor and loyalty.

Returning home from a failed venture to make money in a war, two gravediggers, Tahei (Minoru Chiaki) and Matakishi (Kamatari Fujiwara), stumble upon two pieces of gold hidden in two pieces of wood.  They begin to look around for more of what they believe to be the Akizuki clan treasure.  But as they search, a man (Toshiro Mifune) appears, telling them he knows where the gold is and he'll split it with them.  It's all a test for the two gravediggers because the man is actually General Rokurota Makabe, and he's already mined all the gold, some 200 pieces.  Makabe needs help as he's been given the task of bringing Princess Yuki (Misa Uehara), the last surviving member of the Akizuki clan to safety.  The rival clans that wiped out her family want her dead too, offering a large reward of gold, making Makabe's already difficult mission even harder.

With a running time of 139 minutes, 'Fortress' covers a lot of ground.  It is almost 30 minutes before Mifune's Makabe is introduced and another 15-20 minutes before the real storyline of rescuing the Princess is laid out.  In that way, the movie is a road movie with the unique twist that it is in feudal Japan in the 1500s or so (the time period is never established for sure).  Besides the basic premise, there are scenes that clearly influenced Lucas in creating Star Wars although he clearly mainlined some of the plot and characters.  Yuki is obviously Leia, Makabe a mix between Luke and Han, and Tahei and Matakishi as R2-D2 and C-3PO with a devious streak right down their back.

Chiaki and Fujiwara are at the heart of the story as the characters first introduced.  They bicker like an old married couple, and if they didn't constantly talk about all the women they want, I would have been convinced they were gay.  At one point, they even pull straws to see who gets to "spend some alone time" with a sleeping Princess Yuki.  Clearly, they're not the most lovable characters, and they are pretty dimwitted to boot.  Not the most likable of characters -- and it seems odd that these would-be rapists are used as comic relief -- but they are interesting characters if nothing else.  The same goes for Uehara as Yuki, who comes across as high and mighty, condescending and basically a bitch on wheels.  Once again, interesting character but not easy to root for.

As when I reviewed Throne of Blood, the star of course is Mifune as the heroic General Makabe.  It is his duty to save the Princess, and he's going to get the job done no matter who he has to work with or what he has to do.  This is a more subdued part for the most famous of Japanese actors, and as much as I like verbose, theatrical Mifune, it's great to see him do a part like this.  He has to put up with the two idiotic gravediggers and a young woman who doesn't want to be saved even with her life at risk, but somehow Makabe keeps it all together.  Also, Mifune handles all his own stunts -- again -- including one amazing stunt where he's on horseback charging at full speed, sitting straight up in the saddle, holding a samurai sword above his head.  In other words, as badass as it gets.  This guy is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors.

This was Kurosawa's first venture into widescreen filming, and the movie looks great because of it.  The director fills the screen in every shot whether it be a crowded city or a lonely hillside.  Kurosawa filmed at Mt. Fuji again and with all the different locations there is a real sense that over the course of the movie these characters are in fact moving long distances.  The finale too is pretty good as Makabe's ever-growing motley group tries a dangerous border crossing with a friend/rival (Susumu Fujita) deciding to join the effort.  Also look for Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura in a great two-scene part, and Toshiko Higuchi as a slave girl Makabe rescues.

I've seen a handful of Kurosawa's movies now, and I'm definitely going to continue to look out for his films.  The director has a great eye for the visual -- typically filming in black and white -- while also being able to craft stories with 3-D characters and action that few other directors would be able to do.  Star Wars fans or just a movie fan, The Hidden Fortress is one not to pass up.  No subtitles in the trailer, my bad.

The Hidden Fortress <----trailer (1958): ***/****

Throne of Blood

Some things just go together naturally, like peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, and of course the most obvious one, William Shakespeare and Akira Kurosawa.  The English playwright and poet's works have inspired countless stage, film, and TV adaptations while many of the Japanese director's films are held in the highest regard, as well as being one of the most talented directors ever.  So a Kurosawa interpretation of a Shakespeare source seems like a no-brainer, right?  Pretty much, as was the case with 1957's Throne of Blood. 

The source material is maybe Shakespeare's most well-respected work, Macbeth, which has been a breeding ground for great stage and film actors for hundreds of years because there's two roles ideal for some showing off, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.  A story set in the English countryside in the 1500s doesn't seem like a natural setting for a Japanese movie though, does it?  Kurosawa moves the well-known story to feudal Japan without missing a beat.  Like so many of the director's movies, 'Throne' has a style all to itself, and even in the slower moments is a beautiful movie to watch.

Going to visit Lord Tsuziki, the commander of the armies, after a great victory, generals Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) and Miki (Minoru Chiaki) are visited by a spirit in the woods surrounding the lord's castle.  The spirit makes odd foretellings of what is to come in both men's lives, including predictions of great power and command.  The two old friends laugh it off and continue on, only to have the lord give them the exact promotion the spirit told them they would get.  Shaken by the news, Washizu tells his wife, Lady Asaji (Isuzu Yamada), only to have her convince him they should kill the lord and live up to the foreboding prediction.

It takes some convincing and some prime manipulation on Asaji's part, but a nervous Washizu goes along with the plan.  The murder is blamed on the lord's drunken bodyguards, and Washizu ascends to the most powerful position in the land.  Two men have escaped though with the knowledge of what actually happened, the prince and a strong general (Takashi Shimura, a Kurosawa regular).  Now the only thing standing in the way of complete power is his friend, Miki.  Asaji tries to convince Washizu that he too must die, but a rattled Washizu is not so convinced and begins to unravel mentally and emotionally.  All the while, powers are working against him to overthrow him.

Where Scorsese has De Niro and Pacino and Ford had Wayne, Kurosawa had Toshiro Mifune.  The director-star combo combined to make 16 movies together, many of them considered classics.  Mifune needed a stage as big as the screen for his ability as an actor.  A very physical actor, it's a pleasure just watching him move around, whether it be within a scene of dialogue or in a fight sequence.  He's perfectly suited for the Washizu/Macbeth role because he always seems to be one good push away from completely losing his mind.  His role in The Seven Samurai remains my favorite of his parts, but this is a worthy competitor in Mifune's filmography.

As for the directing, Kurosawa -- as were many non-U.S. directors -- was ahead of the curve.  Hollywood movies were still rather theatrical in the 1950s, but Kurosawa had a filming and storytelling style that was based in reality.  More often than not, his shots were stationary in dialogue scenes, and even scenes with movement the camera was very subtle in its depictions.  Some shots do drag on in those instances, but the style -- right there on the ground with the characters -- works wonders.  A funeral procession goes on and on entering a castle from a burned out plain.  No fancy camerawork here showing crying faces, just a medium long shot of many downtrodden soldiers following their lord.

The sets are really something else here, including the main one for the first fortress where Washizu takes command eventually.  The outdoor sets were filmed on Mt. Fuji with the volcanic setting providing an almost-apocalyptic feel to the story.  The ending especially creates a sense of the end of the world as if this castle was its own world and it is being torn apart.  Filming at a studio for the interior scenes, there's a sparseness to the sets which calls attention to the actors and their lines.  There is nothing to distract the viewer, just bare rooms with little in the way of furniture or design.  It seems a simple concept, but it works perfectly.

Good directors always have to have  a bit of crazy in them, and Kurosawa is no exception, saving his craziness for the end.  SPOILERS STOP READING SPOILERS  Washizu eventually has his army turn on him in a final twist of the spirit's prediction with his archers trying to pick him off and eventually succeeding.  Instead of using stunt doubles or stunt arrows, Kurosawa actually has choreographed archers shooting at/near Mifune.  It is a remarkable sequence (check it out HERE, just watch it on mute) because a couple inches here and there, Mifune would have been a real pincushion.  It is a great ending to a great movie with Mifune showing again why he was Kurosawa's favorite actor.  Definitely look for this Japanese version of Macbeth.

Throne of Blood <----trailer (1957): ***/****

Grand Prix

One of my favorite things about movies is that if someone wants badly enough to make a movie on a specific topic, it's going to happen. And sometimes, more than one person likes that topic so moviegoers are hit with a wave of similar movies. Think of all the quasi-Lord of the Ring movies to come out in recent years, or the sci-fi avalanche that resulted from the original Star Wars trilogy. In the late 60s, it was racing movies as stars and directors turned their attention to fast cars. I've always liked Steve McQueen's 1971 semi-documentary Le Mans and I'd like to see Paul Newman's 1969 racing movie Winning. But the first of these late 60s and early 70s racing movies was 1966's Grand Prix.

I'd read many positive reviews of director John Frankenheimer's race epic that clocks in at just under three hours so I went into the movie really hoping to enjoy it. It tells the story of a whole season of Formula One racing in Europe and the U.S. through the eyes of four drivers. There's Pete Aron (James Garner), an American racer who's been in a two-year long slump but has a chance to climb back to the top with a Japanese racing team owned by Izo Yamura (Toshiro Mifune). Jean-Pierre Sarti (Yves Montand) is a veteran driver tiring of racing but still at the top of his game. He's married but is separated from his wife and during the season falls for an American photojournalist, Louise Frederickson (Eva Marie Saint). A new driver, up and coming Nino Barlini (Antonio Sabato) makes a splash on the circuit after becoming a champion motorcycle driver. And last, there's Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford), a British driver trying to live up to the expectations set by his racing father.

The movie starts with a bang on the opening race of the season at Monte Carlo with a great credit sequence, and here's an extended clip just so you can get an idea of the racing footage. Teammates Aron and Stoddard have a miscommunication mid-race and Aron's car is destroyed and he's shaken up while Stoddard is badly broken up and so starts the tension. Director Frankenheimer clearly pulled out all the stops when it came to the racing footage. Cameras are placed on the cars, facing forward so you get a sense of how fast these cars are going and backward where we see the drivers. Then there's the big wide shots of the racers zipping by.

Not being a Nascar fan, I thought this would get repetitive over the course of the movie. I couldn't have been more wrong. The races never get old, and I recommend watching the movie for those alone. Here's a few more samples, the F1 Spa-Francorchamps and then the finale with SPOILERS at the Italian Monza course with its high banking turns. The footage is so good the race sequences feel like a documentary. It's by far the best racing footage I've come across in movies, right up there with Le Mans.

It's a shame then that Frankenheimer couldn't just have made a racing movie that ran about 2 hours and stopped there. The movie as is drags incredibly slowly once the racers leave their cars on the tracks. It took me a handful of sittings to get through the movie because of that slow pace. Each of the drivers has their personal issues to deal with, but the only one that comes across as sympathetic is Montand's Sarti.

Of course that doesn't mean the huge international cast isn't good. Garner was and still is a cool actor, making seem like he's not even trying. As Aron, the down but not out racer, he may not be the most sympathetic character but as a sort of underdog I was rooting for him. Sabato is having a lot of fun as the rags to riches Italian driver, and Bedford is good but doesn't leave a huge impression. Mifune rises above what could be a cliched role, and Marie Saint is a good counter to Montand. Jack Watson has a small but strong part as Jeff Jordan, Stoddard's fiery race manager. Adolfo Celi makes a quick appearance too as a race team owner.

Rewatching these racing clips as I post, I can't help but feel the adrenaline rush just watching them. And that's the reason to watch Grand Prix, here's a trailer. With so many directors relying on CGI these days, it's hard to imagine better quality race movies coming out. So even though the non-race sequences can be painfully slow, I'm highly recommending this one because I loved the races more than I hated the love stories.