Toshiro MifuneFilmography

Deep River

Synopsis: Based on a book by noted novelist Shusaku Endo, this film concerns three lost souls looking for meaning and redemption: Mitsuko Naruse (Kumiko Akiyoshi) is a recent divorcee still wracked with a guilty conscious; Isobe (Hisashi Igawa) is a white-collar worker morning the death of his wife to Read More

Journey of Honor

Actors: Sho Kosugi, David Essex, Kane Kosugi, Christopher Lee, Toshiro Mifune, Norman Lloyd

Synopsis: Sho Kosugi stars (as well as produced) this picturesque and exciting swashbuckler, directed by Gordon Hessler. Kosugi plays Mayeda, a 17th-century Japanese samurai whose clan, headed by Lord Ieyasu (Toshiro Mifune), is waging a bloody battle with a rival clan. The rival clan has the advantage of Read More

Shadow of the Wolf

Actors: Lou Diamond Phillips, Toshiro Mifune, Jennifer Tilly, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Donald Sutherland

Synopsis: Based on a best-selling novel, this drama, set amongst a remote Eskimo tribe in 1935, was -- at the time it was produced -- the most expensive Canadian motion picture ever made, with a budget of $31 million. Lou Diamond Phillips stars as Agaguk, the rebellious son of tribal leader Kroomak (Toshiro Mifune Read More

Sen No Rikyu

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Kinnosuke Yorozuya, Go Kato, Eiji Okada, Shinsuke Ashida

Synopsis: For those unfamiliar with its deep meaning, the Japanese tea ceremony appears to be a long, incredibly boring, basically uneventful ritual process. In contrast, for many of its practitioners it offers the key to understanding how to live life in a meaningful manner, and is in itself a refreshment Read More

Walking Major

Otoko Wa Tsurai Yo: Shiretoko Bojo

Actors: Keiko Awaji, Chieko Baisho, Toshiro Mifune, Kiyoshi Atsumi

Taketori Monogatari

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Ayako Wakao, Yasuka Sawaguchi, Koji Ishizaka, Kiichi Nakai

Synopsis: Princess From the Moon (Taketori Monogatari) is based on an ancient Japanese legend. Toshiro Mifune plays a 9th century bamboo cutter who comes across a curious glass capsule, housing a tiny baby girl who holds a crystal ball in her hand. Once released, the infant instantly becomes a Read More

Umi Isubame Joe No Kiseki

Actors: Miwako Fujitani, Kentaro Shimizu, Yoshio Harada

Synopsis: The style of this undistinguished action film follows a 1940s Sam Spade mode that is intriguing, but the story of Joe (Saburo Tokito) -- a petty criminal running from the big guns because he killed a mob boss -- is too clichéd and poorly acted to go any deeper than surface events. After making it Read More

The Challenge

Actors: Scott Glenn, Toshiro Mifune, Donna Kei Benz, Atsuo Nakamura, Calvin Jung

Synopsis: The Challenge is a classy effort directed by John Frankenheimer. Scott Glenn stars as an American boxer who finds himself in the middle of a Japanese blood feud. Toshiro Mifune and Atsuo Nakamura plays the last surviving brothers of an ancient samurai family, embroiled in a battle of the Read More

Inchon

Actors: Laurence Olivier, Jacqueline Bisset, Ben Gazzara, Toshiro Mifune, Richard Roundtree

Synopsis: This infamous Korean War drama is best known as the movie produced by Rev. Sung Myung Moon's Unification Church, though more people seem to have read stories about its troubled production or disastrous reception at the box office than to have actually seen it: on its initial release, it grossed Read More

Shogun

Actors: Richard Chamberlain, Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Shimada, Frankie Sakai, Alan Badel

Synopsis: Based on the epic novel by James Clavell, Shogun originated as an epic five-part television miniseries, filmed on location in Japan. Richard Chamberlain stars as John Blackthorne, a 17th century British sea pilot in charge of a Dutch vessel. Shipwrecked off the coast of Japan, Blackthorne is in Read More

The Bushido Blade

Actors: Richard Boone, Sonny Chiba, Frank Converse, Laura Gemser, James Earl Jones

Synopsis: The Bushido Blade is set in 19th century Japan, at the time of American Commodore Matthew Perry's opening up of the ancient oriental nation. As played by Richard Boone (in his last film), Perry is a megalomaniac mercenary who makes Custer look like a humanitarian. The plot involves Perry's efforts Read More

Port Arthur

1941

Actors: Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Toshiro Mifune, Christopher Lee, Nancy Allen

Synopsis: It's December of 1941, and the people of California are in varying states of unease, ranging from a sincere desire to defend the country to virtual blind panic in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Thus begin several story threads that comprise the "plot" of this strange period Read More

Incident at Blood Pass

Crew: Producer

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Yujiro Ishihara, Ruriko Asaoka, Shintaro Katsu

Synopsis: Japanese screen legend Toshiro Mifune bids farewell to the character he made famous in this tale of death and deception also starring Shintaro Katsu of Zatoichi fame. Hired to carry out a mysterious mission, Yojimbo (Mifune) is told to travel to a remote mountain pass and simply wait for something Read More

Winter Kills

Actors: Jeff Bridges, John Huston, Anthony Perkins, Sterling Hayden, Eli Wallach

Synopsis: Based on a novel by the iconoclastic Richard Condon (of Manchurian Candidate and Prizzi's Honor fame), Winter Kills was one of the vanguard efforts in the "JFK conspiracy" school of literature. Jeff Bridges stars as Nick Kegan, the scion of a powerful Kennedyesque family, who has done his best to Read More

Nippon No Don-Yabohen

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kishida, Hiroki Matsukata, Bunta Sugawara

Synopsis: In this gangster film, the Japanese mafia (yakuza) are shown to be "dark suits," or corporation men, not substantially different from their legitimate cousins in the business world. Most of their time is spent going from one interminable business meeting to another, but occasionally they are Read More

Swords of Vengeance

Synopsis: Japan's greatest actor, Toshiro Mifune, and their most powerful action star, Sonny Chiba, team up in this historical action drama. Oishi is an honorable warrior who serves obediently under Lord Asano. After an angry exchange with the villainous Lord Kira, Asano impulsively draws his sword, an act Read More

Shogun's Samurai: The Yagyu Clan Conspiracy

Actors: Sonny Chiba

Synopsis: You've seen him as the bone-cracking anti-hero of the Street Fighter films, now watch Sonny Chiba team with Japanese screen legend Toshiro Mifune and some of the biggest names in Asian cinema in an all-out martial arts melee that's guaranteed to please. Yagyu Jubei (Chiba) is the son of a shogun's Read More

Oginsaga

Actors: Takashi Shimura, Ryoko Nakano, Toshiro Mifune, Daijiro Harada, Atsuo Nakamura

Synopsis: For a brief period during the 16th century, the Portuguese and Dutch were permitted influence in Japan, with the result that a considerable number of Japanese converted to Christianity. By the late 16th century, a reaction against these outside influences was in full sway. In this story, Lady Ogin Read More

Proof of the Man

Synopsis: In this drama, an international crisis is spawned after a young American man is killed in Tokyo. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Midway

Actors: Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook

Synopsis: An expensive war epic, Midway emulates The Longest Day and Tora! Tora! Tora! in attempting to re-create a famous World War II battle from both the American and Japanese viewpoints. The 1942 battle of Midway was the turning point of the War in the Pacific; the Japanese invasion fleet was destroyed Read More

Paper Tiger

Actors: David Niven, Toshiro Mifune, Hardy Kruger, Ando, Ivan Desny

Synopsis: David Niven is an English tutor for the son of the Japanese ambassador to a Southeast Asian country. The two are used as pawns in a politically motivated kidnapping. Niven entertains the boy with fantastic fabrications of his exciting past. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Red Sun

Actors: Charles Bronson, Ursula Andress, Toshiro Mifune, Alain Delon, Capucine

Synopsis: In what was billed as "The First East-Meets-West Western," Toshiro Mifune plays Kuroda, a samurai warrior who accompanies a Japanese diplomat to the United States. The diplomat has brought with him a golden, jewel-encrusted sword to present as a token of good will to the president, but as they Read More

Band of Assassins

Synopsis: The Japanese title of Band of Assassins was Shinsengumi, which pinpointed the assassins in question. The Shinshen was a covert military organization in the employ of the 19th-century Japanese aristocracy. To protect their decadent employers, the Shinshen regularly ventured out to kill political Read More

Zatoichi vs. Yojimbo

Actors: Shintaro Katsu, Toshiro Mifune

Synopsis: In Zatoichi vs. Yojimbo, one of many Japanese samurai films starring the blind swordsman Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu), he has to battle Yojimbo (Toshiro Mifune), the title character from Akira Kurosawa's famous film. At the beginning of the film, Zatoichi is planning on retiring, yet his village is Read More

Battle of the Japan Sea

Actors: Toshiro Mifune

Synopsis: This extravagant Japanese docudrama recounts the conflict between Japan and Russia during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. The film was produced by actor Toshiro Mifune, who narrated the original Japanese print and starred as Admiral Heihachiro Togo. Throughout the film's methodically paced 120 Read More

The Day the Sun Rose

Synopsis: This Japanese action movie is set in Kyoto during the 16th-century. At that time the town was in turmoil over a hefty food tax. The farmers and the wealthy townfolk were battling it out. To assist them, the townspeople hired samurai. That does not stop the determined farmers from defeating them Read More

Under the Banner of Samurai

Synopsis: An aging master swordsman becomes the advisor of a powerful 16th-century warlord. Trouble erupts when the proud leader refuses to listen to his wise samurai's advice to work for a united Japan. More problems arise when the fighter and lord fall in love with the same woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Read More

The Man in the Storm

Synopsis: In this Japanese film, the Shimoda police station gets a new judo instructor who soon finds himself in love with the previous instructor's daughter. This makes another student so jealous that he challenges the new sensei to a duel. The young upstart is quickly put into his place. Later the Read More

Samurai Banners

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Kinnosuke Nakamura, Yujiro Ihsihara, Yoshiko Sakuma, Kankuro Nakamura

Synopsis:

Furin Kazan (AKA Samurai Banners) is based on the bestselling Japanese novel of the same name, written by Yasushi Inove. Toshiro Mifune plays Yamamoto, a physically impaired 17th century Samurai, whose wife and child have been massacred in a war. He signs on to advise a warlord, believing Read More

Red Lion

Crew: Producer

Synopsis:
In this samurai tale, a brave warrior is told by the newly restored emperor that he must return to his home village and announce that there has been a tax cut. Unfortunately, it is a government ruse designed to ensure political control. When the warrior arrives in his home village, he Read More

Secret Scrolls (Part 2)

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Koji Tsuruta, Nobuke Otawa, Jotaro Togami, Senjaku Nakamura

Synopsis: In this sequel to the Japanese epic, Secret Scrolls, Part 1 (1957), the Samurai wizard and his brother finally find one of the three scrolls their evil employer needs to overthrow the Japanese government. Unfortunately, the two fight over it and tear it in half. Ashamed, the two separate, but find Read More

Whirlwind

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Somegoro Ichikawa, Yuriko Hoshi, Kumi Mizuno

Synopsis: Lord Akashi (Toshiro Mifune) is a heroic warrior who comes to the aid of the needy and the oppressed. He is hired to guard a beautiful lady in waiting and the young crowned prince. The group is attacked by marauders who wish to depose of the princess and start a revolt against her father. Akashi Read More

Tunnel to the Sun

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: The building of a dam provides the framework for this Japanese drama. The trouble is that the dam is to be built along a fault line. An engineer is assigned to dig a tunnel so supplies can be brought in. Realizing the grave danger, the engineer is most reluctant to do so. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Read More

Hell in the Pacific

Actors: Lee Marvin, Toshiro Mifune

Synopsis: The entire cast of Hell in the Pacific consists of two high-powered international stars: Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune. The time is World War II. A downed American marine pilot (Marvin), is stalked on a remote Pacific island by a Japanese navy officer (Mifune). The Japanese officer captures the Read More

Secret Scrolls (Part 1)

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Koji Tsuruta, Yoshiko Kuga, Kyoko Kagawa, Mariko Okada

Synopsis: In this Japanese costumer set in the 17th century, three powerful families endeavor to keep three sacred scrolls from ever being pieced together in one place, as they contain the necessary information to overthrow the government. These scrolls are coveted by several greedy, power-mad clans who Read More

The Emperor and a General

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, So Yamamura, Chishu Ryu, Seiji Miyaguchi, Rokko Toura

Synopsis: This star-studded and relatively lavishly produced fact-based war drama, set in 1945 Japan during WW II, chronicles the attempts of Japan's War Minister, (played by Toshiro Mifune), to prevent Emperor Hirohito from publicly broadcasting the declaration of surrender. The War Minister rallies those Read More

Samurai Rebellion

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Go Kato, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa

Synopsis: A father and son prepare to die for their beliefs in this historical drama set in 18th century Japan. While Isaburo Sasahara (Toshiro Mifune) has been loyal to Japan's feudal system all his life, his beliefs begin to change when the local rulers demand that his son Yogoro (Go Kato) give up his Read More

The Mad Atlantic

Synopsis: In this moral drama, the captain of a Japanese trawler must make a difficult decision. The story begins as the boat returns to port after yet another unsuccessful fishing expedition. The company that he works for is most upset and on his next trip, assigns a company official to supervise their Read More

Gion Matsuri

Actors: Shima Iwashita, Toshiro Mifune, Eitaro Ozawa, Takashi Shimura

The Sword of Doom

Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama, Michiyo Aratama, Ichiro Nakaya

Synopsis: In this epic Japanese samurai adventure, a bloodthirsty young fighter (Tatsuya Nakadai) kills a man in competition and is pursued by the slain warrior's brother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Gambling Samurai

Synopsis: In this martial arts film, a Japanese Samurai warrior returns to his home village after being gone for two years. He is appalled to discover that it has been taken over by an uncaring government. His sister is attacked by one of the officials. She is deeply ashamed and kills herself. The samurai Read More

Fort Graveyard

Synopsis: In this Japanese war movie, a rebellious war hero disobeys orders. For his punishment, the fellow is sent to the Chinese front. He goes there and finds that his brother was killed for desertion. This enrages the soldier who explodes and finds himself in deeper trouble, and he is faced with a Read More

Rise Against the Sword

Synopsis: In this Japanese epic, set in the Muromachi era, the leader of a group of Kaga, refuses to help their master, a samurai, fight a battle. In order to convince the Kaga leader, the samurai Lord orders his own daughter to seduce the other's little brother. It doesn't work, and the enraged Lord kills Read More

Grand Prix

Actors: James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Yves Montand, Toshiro Mifune, Brian Bedford

Synopsis: There's a few million dollars' worth of star power and a nickel's worth of plot in the lavish race-car melodrama Grand Prix. Among the participants in this annual cross-continent competition are characters played by James Garner, Yves Montand, Brian Bedford, and Antonio Sabato. Interested parties Read More

Kiganjo no Boken

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Mie Hama, Tadao Nakamaru, Yumi Shirakawa, Tatsuya Mihashi

Synopsis: Toshiro Mifune stars as a shipwrecked sailor who joins a Japanese priest in his search for the bones of Buddha in this children's adventure. The duo are hounded by the forces of a nearby king from his castle fortress. The heroes show the king the error of his ways and even provide him with a Read More

Retreat From Kiska

Red Beard

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kyoko Kagawa, Miyuki Kuwano

Synopsis: In 1820, young Noboru Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama) completes his medical education in Nagasaki and returns to his native Edo hoping both to marry the daughter of a wealthy man and to achieve affluence himself through his medical practice. He happens to visit the famed Koishikawa clinic for the indigent Read More

Samurai Assassin

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Keiju Kobayashi, Yunosuke Ito, Koshiro Matsumoto, Michiyo Aratama

Synopsis: A ronin seeking to redeem his wandering status by gaining entry into one of the great houses takes part in a plot to assassinate a Shogunate Elder in this classic tale of swordplay directed by Okamoto Kihachi, starring Toshiro Mifune, and based on actual events. Niiro Tsuruchiyo (Mifune) is a Read More

Judo Saga

Synopsis: In this drama, a student takes up judo to earn his peers' respect. As he studies and practices under the expert tutelage of his master, the youth is exposed to the spiritual side of the martial art. At first he resists these lessons. But when he fights his girlfriend's father, he begins to gain a Read More

The Legacy of the 500,000

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In this Japanese adventure, a man is kidnapped by the wealthy president of a wartime trading company. He is taken because he is the only one who knows the location of 10,000 gold coins that the Japanese army left in the Philippines during WW II. His captors take him to a boat helmed by the Read More

The Lost World of Sinbad

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Jun Funado, Ichiro Arishima

Synopsis: In this Japanese adventure, a brave sailor--called Sinbad in the English language version Americans could relate to him--must stop a wicked premier from overtaking the kingdom. To do so he enlists the aide of a pirate band. In addition to ridding their land of the villain, they also get rid of the Read More

Attack Squadron

Synopsis: Also released as Kamizake, the Japanese Attack Squadron is a docudrama concerning the suicide pilots of World War 2. An acceptable amount of screen time is devoted to the psychological makeup of the pilots. There is also a cursory overview of the "Die for the Rising Sun" groupthink of the Read More

Tatsu

Synopsis: This lively Japanese adventure is set in a construction camp where laborers are paid a pittance and nearly worked to death by cruel guards. The story centers on one fellow who falls in love with a woman working in the mess hall. The woman is also wooed by another worker. In the end, the two rivals Read More

Chushingura

Actors: Koshiro Matsumoto, Yuzo Kayama, Chusha Ichikawa, Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Tsukasa

Synopsis: This sweeping historical epic has sometimes been labelled the Gone with the Wind of Japan; at any rate, it's almost the same length as Gone (the film was originally released in two parts). Chusha Ichikawa plays a powerful and ruthless feudal lord who battles virtuous young noble Yuzo Kayama. Ichikawa Read More

High and Low

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa, Tatsuya Nakadai

Synopsis: Based on King's Ransom, an "87th Precinct" novel by Ed McBain (aka Evan Hunter), High and Low stars Toshiro Mifune as Gondo, a wealthy industrialist. Gondo is contacted by a gang of kidnappers, who inform him that they've kidnapped his son. The crooks demand a huge ransom for the boy's return Read More

Sanjuro

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiju Kobayashi, Reiko Dan, Takashi Shimura

Synopsis: Set in the mid-19th century when the disintegration of a rigid social structure was turning the once wealthy into paupers, or vice-versa, this kinetic drama by acclaimed Akira Kurosawa features the hero Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune), one of many samurai whose once traditional positions were fast Read More

Osaka Jo Monogatari

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa, Isuzu Yamada, Yuriko Hoshi, Yoshiko Kuga

Synopsis: Mohei (Toshiro Mifune) is the samurai warrior who battles against the Portuguese arsenal of guns and cannons. With these newly introduced weapons, two families battle for control of a valuable land parcel in 17th-century Japan. This feature was made in 1961 but obviously introduced in America to Read More

The Youth and His Amulet

Synopsis: In this Japanese drama, a ten-year-old boy lives in the country with his sister and his widowed father, a Buddhist priest. When the father decides to remarry, the boy is devastated. The father, wanting to avoid trouble, then sends the boy to live with a parishioner in a neighboring village. The Read More

Yojimbo

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Eijiro Tono, Tatsuya Nakadai, Isuzu Yamada, Seizaburo Kawazu, Hiroshi Tachikawa, Daisuke Kato

Synopsis: Toshiro Mifune portrays a Samurai who finds himself in the middle of a feud-torn Japanese village. Neither side is particularly honorable, but Mifune is hungry and impoverished, so he agrees to work as bodyguard (or Yojimbo) for a silk merchant (Kamatari Fujiwara) against a sake merchant (Takashi Shimura Read More

Animas Trujano

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Flor Silvestre

Synopsis: This award-winning drama by noted director Ismael Rodríguez revolves around a festival of mayordomía in the provinces, or something on the idea of "king for a day." In the annual celebration, the church elects one man as "chief," an honor that is gained by buying it, in effect. Whoever Read More

I Bombed Pearl Harbor

Actors: Yosuke Natsuki, Toshiro Mifune, Koji Tsuruta, Misa Uehara, Aiko Mimasu

Synopsis: The attack on Pearl Harbor is presented from the Japanese point of view in this war drama. The story centers upon Natsuki, the flight navigator for Admiral Isoroku Yamaguchi, the task force commander in charge of the fateful attack. After the bombing, Natsuki returns to Japan where his fiance Read More

Man Against Man

Synopsis: Two war buddies help each other defend their businesses against gangsters in this crime drama. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Last Gunfight

Synopsis: In the Japanese detective saga/action film Ankokugai no Taiketsu (AKA Last Gunfight), the legendary Toshiro Mifune portrays Fujioka, a detective facing corruption charges. As the story opens, he receives a demotion and gets reassigned to a crime-ridden district overrun by two notoriously violent Read More

The Bad Sleep Well

Actors: Toshiro Mifune

Synopsis: In this engaging drama, acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa deftly splices together the nuances of hypocrisy, old feudal misconceptions lingering in modern corruption, and Shakespeare's Hamlet. The rotten corporate world is taken on by Koichi Nishi (Toshiro Mifune), who is looking for Read More

Samurai Saga

Synopsis: In this lively Japanese samurai epic, a brave 16th-century fighter challenges an evil warrior clan after he falls in love with a beautiful princess. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Saga of the Vagabonds

Synopsis: Released in Japan as Sengoku Gunto-Den, Saga of the Vagabonds stars Toshiro Mifune as a feudal bandit. Koji Tsuruta, entrusted with the money that will be used to fund the local warlords' battle against Mifune, is waylaid and robbed. Accused of stealing the money, the disgruntled Tsuruta casts Read More

Nippon Tanjo

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Tsukasa, Kyoko Kagawa, Koji Tsuruta, Takashi Shimura

Synopsis: This well-wrought, visually stunning tale from Japanese mythology is directed by Hiroshi Inagaki and relates the adventures of a legendary Prince Yamato Takeru (Toshiro Mifune). The reason for those adventures is linked to the creation and/or discovery of the "three treasures" basic to the Shinto Read More

Down Town

Actors: Isuzu Yamada, Toshiro Mifune, Haruo Tanaka

Synopsis: Isusu Yamada plays a pretty Japanese tea seller who befriends widowed laborer Toshiro Mifune. Before either party knows what has happened, the two have fallen in love. Celebrating their impending marriage, the couple spend a wonderful evening in downtown Tokyo, accompanied by the tea seller's Read More

The Rikisha-Man

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Hideko Takamine, Hiroshi Akutagawa, Ichiro Arishima

Synopsis: Tough and ready Mitsu, the rickshaw man, goes in for anything rough and tumble. His life changes, however, when he crosses paths with Toshio, a young boy who has injured himself. As thanks for helping the boy to the doctor, Toshio's parents, the Yoshiokas, invite Mitsu to dinner and he gladly Read More

The Hidden Fortress

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Misa Uehara, Kamatari Fujiwara, Minoru Chiaki, Susumu Fujita

Synopsis: Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (original Japanese title: Kakushi Toride No San Akunin) stars Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara as a pair of misfit soldiers. Running from the enemy after a disastrous defeat, the two soldiers fall in with general Toshiro Mifune, who is in search of a huge Read More

The Lower Depths

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Kyoko Kagawa, Bokuzen Hidari, Ganjiro Nakamura

Synopsis: Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa transferred the setting of Maxim Gorky's play The Lower Depths from Imperial Russia to his own country's Edo Period--which, like Gorky's 19th-century setting, was an era of great cultural advances, offset by the miseries of those who weren't in the aristocracy. Read More

Throne of Blood

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Minoru Chiaki, Takashi Shimura, Akira Kubo, Takamaru Sasaki

Synopsis: Macbeth is reimagined as a samurai in feudal Japan in director Akira Kurosawa's classic adaptation of the Shakespearean tragedy. Familiar with Orson Welles's more faithful adaptation, Kurosawa chose to place a more personal stamp on his version by translating the events and characters to Read More

Samurai 3: Duel at Ganryu Island

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Koji Tsuruta, Kaoru Yachigusa, Michiko Saga, Mariko Okada

Synopsis: Samurai 3: Duel At Ganryu Island is the final movie in director Hiroshi Inagacki's trilogy following a samurai played by Toshiro Mifune. In this film, Mifune is challenged to a duel by his arch-rival (Koji Tsuruta). Before he fights the duel, Mifune is tested by a number of bandits and has to cope Read More

Record of a Living Being

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Eiko Miyoshi, Masao Shimizu, Yutaka Sada

Synopsis: When an elderly, wealthy man decides that nuclear holocaust is eminent in his country, he decides to move his family to Brazil at all costs--a place which, for some mysterious reason, he believes to be safe. His family refuses to move because they fear that the move will jeopardize their financial Read More

Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Koji Tsuruta, Rentaro Mikuni, Akihiko Hirata, Daisuke Kato, Kuroemon Onoe, Kaoru Yachigusa, Mariko Okada

Synopsis: Musashi Miyamoto was the first entry in Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Ingaki's Samurai trilogy. Toshiro Mifune is Takezo, a good-for-nothing from the farming village of Miyamoto, who dreams of becoming a samurai in 17th century Japan. Over the course of the first part, Takezo evolves from being a man Read More

Samurai 2: Duel at Ichijoji Temple

Actors: Toshiro Mifune

Synopsis: Samurai 2: Duel at Ichijoji Temple follows the adventures of the 17th-century samurai Musashi Miyamoto (Toshiro Mifune), as he wanders through feudal Japan learning the ways of a samurai warrior. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Seven Samurai

Actors: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Yoshio Inaba, Seiji Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, Daisuke Kato, Ko (Isao) Kimura

Synopsis: Akira Kurosawa's epic tale concerns honor and duty during a time when the old traditional order is breaking down. The film opens with master samurai Kambei (Takashi Shimura) posing as a monk to save a kidnapped farmer's child. Impressed by his selflessness and bravery, a group of farmers begs him Read More

The Samurai Trilogy

Synopsis: Samurai Trilogy is a 303-minute videotape comprised of the three Samurai films masterminded by Japanese director Hiroshi Inagaki in the mid-1950s. Toshiro Mifune stars in all three films as 17th century Samurai warrior Miyamato Musashi. The films trace the samurai's matriculation from lowly farm Read More

Taiheiyo No Washi

The Life of Oharu

Actors: Kinuyo Tanaka, Toshiro Mifune, Ichiro Sugai

Synopsis: Life of Oharu features Kinuyo Tanaka in the title role. Oharu is a middle-aged prostitute in 17th century Japan. As she prays before a statue of Buddha, Oharu reviews her past. Her road to degradation began when, as a teenager, she disgraced her family by falling in love with a samurai (Toshiro Mifune Read More

Rashomon

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki

Synopsis: This landmark film is a brilliant exploration of truth and human weakness. It opens with a priest, a woodcutter, and a peasant taking refuge from a downpour beneath a ruined gate in 12th-century Japan. The priest and the woodcutter, each looking stricken, discuss the trial of a notorious bandit Read More

The Idiot

Actors: Masayuki Mori, Toshiro Mifune, Setsuko Hara, Yoshiko Kuga

Synopsis: A former soldier is branded an idiot because of his epileptic seizures caused by wartime experiences. He shows unbridled compassion for people after he moves in with friends of his family as he tries to help a young man ruined by the war and a woman hounded by a wealthy but cruel suitor. All the Read More

Scandal

Actors: Yoshiko Yamaguchi, Takashi Shimura

Synopsis: Released in Japan as Shubun, Scandal was the eleventh film directed by Akira Kurosawa (it was produced just prior to his more famous Rashomon). The director described it as a "protest" film about press journalism. The film sets forth the theory that the postwar Japanese press was too free in its Read More

Konyaku Yubiwa

Actors: Kinuyo Tanaka, Jukichi Uno

The Quiet Duel

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Noriko Sengoku, Kenjiro Uemura, Chieko Nakakita, Miki Sanjo

Synopsis: A dedicated army surgeon finds his once-bright future suddenly obscured when he contracts syphilis while performing a life-saving operation in this early collaboration between director Akira Kurosawa and Toshirô Mifune. Contaminated with a disease that was virtually incurable in 1940s Japan Read More

Stray Dog

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Ko (Isao) Kimura

Synopsis: Akira Kurosawa directs the black-and-white 1949 film noir Nora Inu (released in the U.S. in 1963 as Stray Dog). In his third film with Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune plays young police detective Murakami. One summer day on a crowded bus in Tokyo, his gun is stolen by a pickpocket. Rather than face the Read More

Drunken Angel

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Reisaburo Yamamoto, Chieko Nakakita

Synopsis: Originally titled Yoidore tenshi, Drunken Angel was director Akira Kurosawa's first "auteur" project. "I finally discovered myself," he explained later. "It was my picture: I was doing it and no one else." Takashi Shimura plays an alcoholic doctor, running a fleabitten clinic in the slums of Read More