Early Kurosawa---new set from Criterion

[KyFi]

All right! And it's the "Eclipse" series, so the price isn't too bad:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003N2CVQ8/dvdtalk

I love Sanshiro Sugata 1 and Those who Tread on Tiger's Tail, haven't seen the other two.

[Athena]

All right! And it's the "Eclipse" series, so the price isn't too bad:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003N2CVQ8/dvdtalk

I love Sanshiro Sugata 1 and Those who Tread on Tiger's Tail, haven't seen the other two.

ThKyFi they are all good ! & the "Eclipse" series is very cheep!!

Kurosawa is awesome, a real master ! (There is only a very few of the later movies of his that did really click with me, like Dreams & Rhapsody but they are still way way above the normal stuff around ..)

Xiexie Athena

[KyFi]

Yep, I agree, Athena.

Also, I'll be happy to see these in really good picture quality with good subtitles. The DVDs of the two that I had were cheap HK releases. The picture quality wasn't very good, and I believe the subtitles had been translated from Japanese to Chinese, and THEN translated from Chinese to English----the result is that the English subs were kind of like abstract poetry.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

The early Kurosawa's are the only Kurosawa's I have not seen (I've seen everything from No Regrets for Our Youth on) so I'm definitely looking forward to this set.

I know a few people have been upset because they bought the box set AK 100: 25 Films of Akira Kurosawa not too long ago. But I'm happy though. It will be nice to finally see Sanshiro Sugata and how it influenced Throwdown .

[daisho2004]

Honestly I'm not familiar with any of those movies. But I'm a big fan of Kurosawa's.

[KyFi]

I think you guys would be impressed with Sanshiro Sugata. It's not just a good drama with a couple of fight scenes---I would say it qualifies as a martial arts movie. It's got a number of good judo/jujitsu fight scenes, including some dojo stuff and a climatic final fight in a windswept field of tall grass.

[Pai Mei]

Just noticed that this and all other Criterion releases, including Blu-ray, are 50% off at Barnes & Nobel.com. I'm not sure how long the sale will last though. Seems to be pretty good prices.

Sorry to piggy-back the thread, I couldn't find a decent place to post this.

[ShaOW!linDude]

I second KyFi. I've not watched it in years but I remember Sanshiro Sugata as being really, really good. (I've got an old VHS copy.) I enjoyed it more than Yojimbo.

[Guest WuxiaFan]

I have this set and it's simply awesome! SANSHIRO SUGATA I and II are phenominal movies! Criterion did an incredible job on the transfer and the subtitles are well written and easy to read. SANSHIRO SUGATA I was done in 1943, so don't expect long, elaborate fight scenes that you might be accustomed to. They're very good considering when the film was shot, but Kurosawa's emphasis in on the story. But it's all excellent nonetheless.

[ShaOW!linDude]

I didn't know there was a second one.

[Guest WuxiaFan]

I didn't know there was a second one.

Here are the details:

SANSHIRO SUGATA

Akira Kurosawa 1943

Kurosawa’s effortless debut is a thrilling martial arts action tale, but it’s also a moving story of moral education that’s quintessential Kurosawa.

SANSHIRO SUGATA, Part Two

Akira Kurosawa 1945

Kurosawa’s first film was such a success that the studio leaned on the director to make a sequel. The result is a hugely entertaining adventure, reuniting most of the major players from the original.

Here's full details on the box set:

http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/743-eclipse-series-23-the-first-films-of-akira-kurosawa

[masterofoneinchpunch]

For those who are interested (and who have seen the film) I put a full length review/essay of the film in the Reviews section.

[ShaOW!linDude]

Cool. Thanks to both of you.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

Here's my review for The Most Beautiful. I'll probably add some sources to it and revise it later, but a little burnt out of it right now:

The Most Beautiful (1944)

"The Most Beautiful is not a major picture, but it is the one dearest to me." - Akira Kurosawa

Propaganda films are usually of interest to me because of the situation and time period they were made in and their point of view not because of plot or sublime character development. Rarely do the characterizations, I currently cannot think of one, go beyond one or two dimensions. This is because the point of the propaganda film regardless of origin is to rally the troops and align their sense of duty. This movie is no different in that regard. But there are several key differences from the typical propaganda film that makes this film more interesting. The most interesting approach was the documentary approach Kurosawa took. Though he used actresses he did all he could to remove the artificiality of their craft to create a realistic portrait of the young girls at that time who were working in military construction. I felt this movie was effective in that regard. The tempered acting to those that are used to the Noh influenced acting of his later films. Another surprise is that this is one of two films of Kurosawa where the protagonist is a woman. The other one is No Regrets For Our Youth (1946) with Setsuko Hara.

The least interesting aspect of the film is the story. It is about a group of young women in an optical instrument factory that have to push up production to fill the need for the optical lens. While the men were asked to increase their production a hundred percent, the women were asked to do 50 percent. This insulted the women and they asked that they do a more respectable number like 66 percent (would a higher number have been insulting to the men?). The hardships created by this are numerable as the women face sickness, injury, mental breakdown and general crabbiness.

The movie is too episodic and heavy on the “team spirit” motif (not that Kurosawa had much of a choice), but it eventually settles on the titular protagonist in Tsuru Watanabe (Yoko Yaguchi) who embodies the spirit (kokoro) of an ideal worker. Her mother is dying, but her father and her mother want her to stay in the factory working so that Japan will not lose face. What is subversive is that she is a stubborn individualist. When she loses track of lens that she did not finish correcting, she goes through the monument task of finding it, and regardless of the pain it causes her, the lack of sleep and her supervisors telling her she does not need to do it – she does it anyways.

I do not agree with Donald Richie in his The Films of Akira Kurosawa when he states “Twenty years later it is almost impossible for us to think a lost lens this important.” She states that she worries that lost lens might result in the death of Japanese soldiers (and possibly in her mind a battle and ultimately the war). It does not matter if she is correct in this thinking, it only matters that she feels that way. Anyone who has any degree of OCD can relate to this. Once the mind gets fixed with an idea that may haunt them it is easy to understand the monomania which consumes her until she finds her mistake.

One thing that surprised me when hearing it in the film, and the fact that Kurosawa got away with putting into the score (he mentions this in his autobiography), is the insertion of “Semper Fidelis” by John Philip Sousa.

Has anyone seen any other Kurosawa film where he uses as many horizontal wipes?

After the picture he married the main actress Yoko Yaguchi. It was love at first sight. Kurosawa stated “She was a terribly stubborn and uncompromising person, and since I am very much the same, we often clashed head on.” I do wonder how well they got along over the years though.

I think this film can satisfy not only Akira Kurosawa fans but fans of social realist cinema and of course those looking for propaganda films of WWII. If someone is just getting into Japanese cinema this probably could be passed on for quite a long awhile. But for completists (those reading this) they will want to see this. But then again completists want to see everything.

I can almost repeat this paragraph I used for Sanshiro Sugata: This film can be found in the AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa set from Criterion or the relatively cheaper Eclipse set The First Films of Akira Kurosawa. The print is solid, though scratches can be seen throughout. It would have been nice to see a more expansive restoration of it and/or any extras besides the liner notes by Stephen Prince author of The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa, but ultimately I am happy it is available in an R1 edition.

Sources:

The Films of Akira Kurosawa 3rd Edition (1996/1998) by Donald Richie

Something of an Autobiography (1982/1983) by Akira Kurosawa

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1539-eclipse-series-23-the-first-films-of-akira-kurosawav

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036947/combined