IF THEY SHOULD BAR WARS, PLEASE LEAVE US THESE :

Cinema's Magnificent Two : Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune All but Invented the Warrior Class. AFI Shows How. (Stephen Hunter, August 4, 2002, Washington Post)

It began so inauspiciously, as Kurosawa recalled in "Something Like an Autobiography": He had been summoned to witness the audition of a young man who had answered the studio's newspaper ad for new faces. The fellow turned out to be a corncob-rough ex-soldier who, although Japanese, was born in China and had not set foot in the mother country until that year. He was untrained, uncouth, almost unlettered.

But that's not what Kurosawa saw. He saw instead the following vision: "A young man was reeling around the room in a violent frenzy. It was as frightening as watching a wounded or a trapped savage beast trying to break loose. I stood transfixed."

One especially interesting Kurosawa and Mifune film is The Hidden Fortress [Kakushi toride no san akunin] (1958), which George Lucas borrowed from liberally for the Star Wars saga. It had been very hard to find but then Criterion came out with a DVD version that's pricey, but worthwhile.
Posted by Orrin Judd at August 10, 2002 2:46 PM