The genius of Akira Kurosawa in five perfect scenes
As one of the most important figures in the history of cinema, Akira Kurosawa has cast a shadow that will continue to loom over the art form for as long as it exists.
There are few – if any – filmmakers to have amassed a back catalogue boasting such a voluminous amount of classics over the course of their career, with at least half a dozen of his features more than capable of being a genuine contender to the title of the greatest movie ever made.
Several generations have embraced the DNA established by Kurosawa to keep his legacy alive, with such disparate titles as intimate character-driven dramas like the Bill Nighy-led Living to Netflix’s overblown sci-fi spectacular Rebel Moon being directly inspired by and indebted to the master’s work in the very recent past.
When there’s so much greatness to choose from, the prospect of being definitive has the potential to ignite endless debate and simmering discourse, but the following five scenes are unquestionably about as close to cinematic perfection as it gets, with each of them boasting Kurosawa at his purest and most distilled.
Five perfect Akira Kurosawa scenes:
5. Red Beard (1965)
The 16th and final collaboration between Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune tells the story of a small-town doctor and his arrogant trainee near the end of the Edo period in the 19th century. It’s far from being an action-packed epic like some of the duo’s previous efforts, but it nonetheless boats a showstopping fight sequence.
Mifune’s Kyojō Niide proves himself to be far more than just a stoic physician when a band of criminals arrive with intentions of doing harm to one of his patients, with the doctor’s background in martial arts and knowledge of how to manipulate the human anatomy to his advantage ensuring he makes short work of the would-be assailants.
Red Beard is a slow-burning and elegiac drama that spans over three hours, which in turn makes the burst of sudden and majestically choreographed violence all the more memorable. Niide even apologises for the carnage he’s left behind in his wake, informing his young charge that doctors shouldn’t harm others despite there being a trail of broken bodies lying literally at his feet.
4. Throne of Blood (1957)
Kurosawa’s sweeping period pieces were often Shakespearean at the best of times, but Throne of Blood took things one step further by liberally lifting many of its plot and character beats directly from Macbeth, ensuring that a tragic end befalling more than one figure in the story was inevitable.
Sure enough, it’s Mifune’s Taketoki Washizu who takes top honours in that regard as a cavalcade of arrows bombard him. Attempting to get his soldiers to mount an offensive backfires in the worst possible fashion when they unleash their quivers at him instead, forcing him to flee until he can’t outrun the assault any longer.
The director made the bold and somewhat risky call of firing real arrows at Mifune, meaning that his terrified expression may not have been entirely caused by his mercurial acting ability. Sheer terror grips Washizu, with arrows swamping the frame to hammer home to the audience that the end really is nigh, guaranteeing that his fate is completely and utterly inescapable.
3. Yojimbo (1961)
The gist of Yojimbo is deceptively simple, with a ronin happening upon a village caught in the midst of a power struggle. Mifune’s wanderer takes it upon himself to pit them against each other to his own advantage, with the end result making a seismic impact on everyone and everything from Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone to Quentin Tarantino and Star Wars.
For the most part, the lone warrior doesn’t need to get physical in order to achieve his goals, at least until the final showdown arrives. The entire narrative has been building towards a finale of epic proportions, lulling many into a false sense of security. Even at that, anyone expecting a lengthy battle wouldn’t have been left disappointed.
Dispatching his foes as effortlessly as possible, even firearms are no match for a highly-skilled samurai, who cuts a swathe through his opposition in lightning-quick fashion, enhanced by Kurosawa’s unmatched ability to stage and shoot a set piece for maximum impact.
2. Ikiru (1952)
A contemplative drama that sees Takashi Shimura’s bureaucrat Kanji Watanabe strive to make the most of the time he has left after being diagnosed with terminal cancer may lack the bombast and overt visual panache that defines many of Kurosawa’s other classics, but Ikiru still packs a substantial emotional punch.
Trying to mend the fractured relationships in his life only yields more pain, so Watanabe opts to facilitate the happiness of strangers by building a playground in a rundown area. When it’s completed, he’s finally ready to embrace the end. Tragic but full of hope, the protagonist’s final scene is a thing of beauty.
With the playground finished, Watanabe sits on a swing and sings his favourite song as the snow falls all around him, with the dark knight being juxtaposed with the white snow, making it look and feel as though he’s truly the only person really living at that moment in time, despite knowing full well the end is near.
1. Seven Samurai (1954)
Quite possibly the single most influential action scene in the history of cinema, Seven Samurai became such a monolithic presence over the entirety of the medium that the bare bones of its plot and character dynamics continue to be repeatedly mined for inspiration almost 70 years later.
Everyone from Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese to Zack Snyder and the Marvel Cinematic Universe via George Miller, Ridley Scott, and innumerable other filmmakers and franchises owe at least a small debt of gratitude to the inimitable showdown as the titular septet mount their final defence of a mountain village from bandits.
Pioneering what would soon become common practice by using multiple cameras to shoot the same scene simultaneously from a number of different angles, cutting back and forth between the various battles within the battle displays a mastery of spatial awareness, pacing, editing, and composition. To offer it the most fitting and entirely accurate measure of praise, there was action cinema before Seven Samurai, and then everything else that came after.
