Kurosawa Film Trailers (Part 5 of 5)

Part 5 of 5 of Akira Kurosawa film trailers in English:

Dersu Uzala (1975)  

From Wikipedia:

Dersu Uzala (Russian: Дерсу Узала, Japanese: デルス·ウザーラ; alternate U.S. title: Dersu Uzala: The Hunter) is a 1975 joint Soviet-Japanese film production directed by Akira Kurosawa, his first non Japanese language film. The film won the Grand Prix at the Moscow Film Festival and the 1975 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The film is based on the 1923 memoir Dersu Uzala by Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev, about his exploration of the Sikhote-Alin region of Siberia over the course of multiple expeditions in the early 20th century.

The film is almost entirely shot outdoors in the ruggedly beautiful Siberian wilderness. As with most of Kurosawa's work, each frame is carefully composed to form a dramatic picture. The film explores the theme of a native of the forests who is fully integrated into his environment, leading a style of life that will inevitably be destroyed by the advance of civilization. It is also about the growth of respect and deep friendship between two men of profoundly different backgrounds, and about the difficulty of coping with the loss of strength and ability that comes with old age.

The film sold 20.4 million tickets in the Soviet Union and made $1.2 million in the US and Canada.

Kagemusha (1980)

From Wikipedia:

Kagemusha (影武者) is a 1980 film by Akira Kurosawa. The title (which literally translates to "Shadow Warrior" in Japanese) is a term used for an impersonator. It is set in the Warring States era of Japanese history and tells the story of a lower-class criminal who is taught to impersonate a dying warlord in order to dissuade opposing lords from attacking the newly vulnerable clan. The warlord whom the kagemushaimpersonates is based on daimyo Takeda Shingen and the climactic 1575 Battle of Nagashino.

Ran (1985)

From Wikipedia:

Ran (乱, "chaos" or "revolt") is a 1985 film written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. It is a jidaigeki (Japanese period drama) depicting the fall of Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai), an agingSengoku-era warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons. The story is based on legends of the daimyo Mōri Motonari, as well as on the Shakespearean tragedy King Lear.

Ran was Kurosawa's last epic. With a budget of $12 million, it was the most expensive Japanese film ever produced up to that time.  After Ran, Kurosawa directed three other films before he died, but none on so large a scale. The film was hailed for its powerful images and use of color—costume designer Emi Wadawon an Academy Award for Costume Design for her work on Ran. The distinctive Gustav Mahler-inspiredfilm score, written by Tōru Takemitsu, plays in isolation with ambient sound muted.

Rhapsody in August (1991)

From Wikipedia:

Rhapsody in August (八月の狂詩曲 Hachigatsu no rapusodī, aka Hachigatsu no kyōshikyoku) is a 1991 Japanese film by Akira Kurosawa. The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, who lost her husband in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies. American film star Richard Gere appears as Suzujiro's son Clark.

Kurosawa Film Trailers (Part 4 of 5)

Here is part 4 of 5 of Akira Kurosawa film trailers in English

High and Low (1963)

From Wikipedia:

High and Low (天国と地獄 Tengoku to Jigoku, literally "Heaven and Hell") is a 1963 film directed by Akira Kurosawa, starring Toshirō Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai and Kyōko Kagawa. It was loosely based on King's Ransom, an 87th Precinct police procedural by Ed McBain.

Akahige (Red Beard) 1965

From Wikipedia:

Red Beard (赤ひげ Akahige) is a 1965 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa about the relationship between a town doctor and his new trainee. The film was based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's short story collection, Akahige shinryotan (赤ひげ診療譚). Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Insulted and the Injured provided the source for a subplot about a young girl, Otoyo (Terumi Niki), who is rescued from a brothel. Red Beard looks at the problem of social injustice and explores two of Kurosawa's favourite topics: humanism and existentialism.

Dodesuka-den (1970)

From Wikipedia:

Dodesukaden (どですかでん) is a film by Akira Kurosawa set in a contemporary Japanese rubbish dump. The film focuses on the lives of a variety of characters who happen to live in the dump. The first one introduced is a mentally challenged boy who pretends to be a tram conductor by following a set route through the dump in an imaginary tram that he mimes. The film title refers to a Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound made by a tram or train while in motion ( "Do-desu-ka-den do-desu-ka-den do-desu-ka-den"). The sound is made by the boy as he makes his daily faux-tram route through the dump. Dodesukaden was filmed on an actual dump in Tokyo.

This was Kurosawa's first color film, and he took full of advantage of the new color medium. After the success of Red Beard, it took Kurosawa five years before this film appeared. None of the actors from Kurosawa's stock company of the 1950's and 60's were in this film and most of the cast were relatively unknown. Dodesukaden was unlike anything that Kurosawa had made before, and was critically panned in Japan despite earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film for the 44th Academy Awards for films made in 1970. 

Dodesukaden was Kurosawa's first financial failure and came during the worst possible time in his life. When Dodesukaden was filmed Kurosawa had been going through a lull in his career and personal life - he was finding it increasingly difficult to obtain financing despite the critical and financial success of his previous films, and rumors about his deteriorating mental health only made matters worse. Dodesukaden was only made by the cooperation and co-producing of three other Japanese directors, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi, and Kon Ichikawa.

The critical failure of Dodesukaden sent Kurosawa into a deep depression, and in 1971 he attempted suicide. Despite having slashed himself over 30 times with a razor, Kurosawa survived his suicide attempt; however, he would not return to filmmaking for five years, releasing Dersu Uzala in 1975.