Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)

Takashi Shimura in Ikiru

Cast: Takashi Shimura, Shin'ichi Himori, Haruo Tanaka, Minoru Chiaki, Miki Odagiri, Yunosuke Ito, Bokuzen Hidari, Minosuke Yamada, Kamatari Fujiwara, Makoto Kobori, Nobuo Kaneko, Nobuo Nakamura, Kyoko Seki. Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni. Cinematography: Asakazu Nakai. Production design: Takashi Matsuyama. Film editing: Koichi Iwashita. Music: Fumio Hayasaka.

Takashi Shimura, one of the finest actors in Akira Kurosawa's films, often took a back seat to the more flamboyant and handsome Toshiro Mifune, but he gets a chance to shine on his own in Ikiru. It's a story of growing old, a topic more prominent in the films of Yoshijiro Ozu than in Kurosawa's -- at least until Kurosawa began to age. Shimura's Kanji Watanabe is a bureaucrat with a rather greedy and unloving family who learns that he has terminal stomach cancer and decides that he wants to experience life before he dies. Hedonism doesn't work out for him, so he turns to service to others, particularly the people he has seen over the years shoved around by the bureaucracy of which he is a part. It's a somewhat more satiric film than most of Kurosawa's, but also somewhat more didactic. Nevertheless, it's held together by Shimura's fine performance.

The Samurai Trilogy (Hiroshi Inagaki, 1954, 1955, 1956)

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Toshiro Mifune in Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple

Kaoru Yachigusa in Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple

Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island

Toshiro Mifune and Koji Tsuruta in Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island

Musashi Miyamoto: Toshiro Mifune
Otsu: Kaoru Yachigusa
Kojiro Sasaki: Koji Tsuruta
Matahachi: Rentaro Mikuni
Takuan Osho: Kuroemon Onoe
Akemi: Mariko Okada
Oko: Mitsuko Mito
Osugi: Eiko Miyoshi
Sado Nakaoka: Takashi Shimura
Sasuke: Minoru Chiaki
Nikkan: Kokuten Kodo
Koetsu Hinami: Ko Mihashi
Toji Gion: Daisuke Kato
Shishido: Eijiro Tono

Director: Hiroshi Inagaki
Screenplay: Hiroshi Inagaki, Tokuhei Wakao
Based on a play by Hideji Hojo and a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa
Cinematography: Jun Yasumoto (I,II), Kazuo Yamada (III)
Art direction: Makoto Sono (I)
Production design: Kisaku Ito (II,III)
Film editing: Eiji Ooi (I,II), Koichi Iwashita (III)
Music: Ikuma Dan

Toshiro Mifune achieves a kind of gravitas that he never displays in the movies by Akira Kurosawa in which he played a samurai. That's because Hiroshi Inagaki's trilogy is a kind of cinematic Bildungsroman: the education of Musashi Miyamoto, a historic figure who served as a kind of bridge between the swordsmanship tradition of the Japanese warrior and the meditative tradition rooted in Zen Buddhism. It's a strongly planned trilogy where it comes to Miyamoto's development, and Mifune provides a solid center. But I found myself distracted by the Hollywoodizing of the story, especially the subplot involving Otsu, the woman who loves Miyamoto so much that she devotes her life to seeking him out. The argument goes that this romantic subplot represents one of the trials that Miyamoto must undergo before he can achieve the kind of wisdom that his spiritual mentors wish for him, but Otsu's doggedness struck me as heavy-handed and sentimental. Still, it's a fascinating and often spectacular trio of films, beautifully climaxing in the battle between Miyamoto and Kojiro Sasaki as the sun sets over the sea on whose verge they are dueling.