Akira Kurosawa — Playwright (41)
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Movie

Currents of Youth (1942) IMDb TMDB
青春の気流
director: Osamu Fushimizu actor: Setsuko Hara / Hisako Yamane …
other title: 青春の気流
It was supposed to be about a love story, but it was and was not. An aircraft mechanic working for the government is matched by his boss with the latter man's daughter (Setsuko Hara) who is both beautiful and aggressive. Yet, he picks a woman who is less assertive as his bride.
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Movie

The Fencing Master (1962) IMDb TMDB
殺陣師段平
director: Shunkai Mizuho actor: Ganjirō Nakamura II / Raizō Ichikawa …
other title: 殺陣師段平
The Fencing Master tells the story of a man trying to survive as the only world he knows is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Danpei Ichikawa lives for swordfighting – he was once a renowned kabuki swordfight choreographer, and as the Chairman of the New National Theatre Company, he wants nothing more than to choreograph the swordfights for the modern plays put on by the company.
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Movie

Saga of the Vagabonds (1959) IMDb TMDB
戦国群盗傳
director: Toshio Sugie actor: Toshirō Mifune / Koji Tsuruta …
other title: Le scimitarre dei mongoli / 戦国群盗傳
Lord Taro must deliver a money chest but is robbed by brigands led by Jibu. One of Jibu's men, Rokuro, steals the money from Jibu, but after meeting and befriending Taro, Rokuro decides to return the money to Taro. But Taro's unscrupulous brother Jiro falsely accuse Taro of the theft, and Taro reactively joins the outlaw band and encourages them to steal from the nobles and give to the poor.
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Movie

Vanished Enlisted Man (1955) IMDb TMDB
消えた中隊
director: Akira Mimura actor: Ryūtarō Tatsumi / Kenichiro Kawamura …
other title: 消えた中隊
In June 1941, Captain Kagawa (Ryutaro Tatsumi), who had just graduated from the military academy, was assigned as the captain of a sentry patrol in Beiman, which was located on the opposite side of the Heilongjiang River from the Semidomka region of the Soviet Union. His predecessor, Lieutenant Kishi (Kawamura Kenichiro), a mild-mannered middle-aged man, had earned the trust of his men and the villagers by relaxing his military duties. However, newly appointed Lieutenant Kagawa thinks that Kishi's way of doing things is sloppy and begins to train the soldiers furiously in order to teach them a lesson.
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Movie

Jakoman and Tetsu (1949) IMDb TMDB
ジャコ萬と鉄
director: Senkichi Taniguchi actor: Toshirō Mifune / Ryūnosuke Tsukigata …
other title: Jakoman et Tetsu / ジャコ萬と鉄
In a village subsisting on it herring fishery, a one-eyed criminal named Jakoman terrorizes the inhabitants. One of them, the son of the head of one of the fish companies by the name of Tetsu, decides to overthrow Jakoman and his cohorts.
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Movie

Sword for Hire (1952) WikiData IMDb TMDB
戦国無頼
director: Hiroshi Inagaki actor: Rentaro Mikuni / Toshirō Mifune …
other title: Sengoku burai / 戦国無頼 …
Soldiers Hayate and Yaheiji secretly escape from their besieged castle. Hayate has left behind his lover, Kano. On his way, Hayate is wounded and cared for by O’Ryo, who falls in love with him. But when Hayate accidentally kills her caretaker, he flees, with O’Ryo in pursuit. Subsequently, Hayate's comrade Yaheiji falls in love with Oryo. Kano, the lover left behind by Hayate, believes him dead, and becomes involved with another soldier, Jurota. When Jurota defects to the opposing army, he takes Kano with him. A double set of love triangles has developed, wherein each man and each woman loves one and is loved by another. Finally only combat and self-sacrifice can untangle the weave.
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Movie

Dora-heita (2000) WikiData IMDb TMDB
どら平太
director: Kon Ichikawa actor: Koji Yakusho / Yuko Asano …
other title: どら平太 / I Went To
A new magistrate in the town of Horisoto—widely reputed to be the most lawless township in Japan, uses guile and his opponents' own misperceptions and prejudices to defeat his enemies and uproot corruption.
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Movie

Song of the Horse (1970) IMDb TMDB
馬の歌
director: Akira Kurosawa / Ryō Kinoshita actor: Hiroyuki Kawase / Noboru Mitani
other title: Canção do Cavalo / La canción del caballo …
Akira Kurosawa’s only television work—a lyrical documentary that follows a thoroughbred from birth and training to the Japan Derby—framed by a grandfather’s narration to his grandson about the fading bond between people and horses.
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Movie

The Most Beautiful (1944) WikiData IMDb TMDB
一番美しく
director: Akira Kurosawa actor: Takashi Shimura / Shōji Kiyokawa …
other title: Lo spirito più elevato / A Mais Bela …
Young women at a precision optics factory in wartime Japan push to exceed production quotas, enduring illness, injury, and personal hardship to “serve the country.” Led by Tsuru Watanabe, they fight fatigue and setbacks to keep their line moving—even when duty collides with grief.
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Movie

Snow Trail (1947) WikiData IMDb TMDB
銀嶺の果て
director: Senkichi Taniguchi actor: Toshirō Mifune / Takashi Shimura …
other title: La Montagne d'argent / 銀嶺の果て …
Three bank robbers, Eijima, Nojiri, and Takasugi, flee the police and escape into the mountains. At an inn high in the Japanese Alps, Eijima and Nojiri encounter a young woman and her father, as well as Honda, a mountaineer. The inn folk do not realize their guests are wanted criminals and the visitors are treated with great kindness. Honda volunteers to lead them over the mountains, but Eijima's paranoia endangers all of them as they make the perilous trip.
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Movie

Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two (1945) WikiData IMDb TMDB
續 姿三四郎
director: Akira Kurosawa actor: Denjirō Ōkōchi / Susumu Fujita …
other title: Sanshiro Sugata 2 / A Saga do Judo 2 …
A few years after his breakthrough, Sanshiro resumes his path to judo mastery—testing his discipline against an American prizefighter and later facing vengeful karate brothers. As rival schools and public spectacle push him toward violence, he must reconcile strength with restraint and the true spirit of his art.
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No Regrets for Our Youth (1946)
わが青春に悔なし
director: Akira Kurosawa actor: Setsuko Hara / Susumu Fujita …
other title: Non rimpiango la mia giovinezza / Não Lamento a Minha Juventude …
After her anti-fascist professor father is dismissed, Yukie navigates love, political repression, and wartime upheaval—ultimately forging her own path in pre- and post-WWII Japan.
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Movie

The Idiot (1951)
白痴
director: Akira Kurosawa actor: Setsuko Hara / Masayuki Mori …
other title: L'idiota / O Idiota …
A gentle, war-shattered ex-soldier, Kinji Kameda, arrives in wintry Hokkaidō and is pulled into a volatile tangle of love and pity between the disgraced Taeko Nasu, the proud Ayako, and his possessive friend Akama. Kameda’s saintly compassion exposes everyone’s wounds, steering the quartet toward jealousy, violence, and inexorable tragedy. Adapted from Dostoevsky’s novel.
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Jakoman and Tetsu (1964)
ジャコ萬と鉄
director: Kinji Fukasaku actor: Ken Takakura / Tetsuro Tamba …
other title: Jakoman et Tetsu / ジャコ萬と鉄
In a village subsisting on its herring fishery, a one-eyed criminal named Jakoman terrorizes the inhabitants. One of them, the son of the head of one of the fish companies by the name of Tetsu, decides to overthrow Jakoman and his cohorts.
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Dodes'ka-den (1970)
どですかでん
director: Akira Kurosawa actor: Yoshitaka Zushi / Kin Sugai …
other title: どですかでん / Dodeskaden - O Caminho da Vida …
This film follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Yet as desperate as their circumstances are, each of them—the homeless father and son envisioning their dream house; the young woman abused by her uncle; the boy who imagines himself a trolley conductor—finds reasons to carry on.
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The Quiet Duel (1949) WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
静かなる決闘
director: Akira Kurosawa actor: Toshirō Mifune / Miki Sanjō …
other title: Il duello silenzioso / Duelo Silencioso …
A young army surgeon, Kyoji Fujisaki, accidentally contracts syphilis during a WWII field operation. Back at his father’s clinic, he treats himself in secret and breaks off his engagement rather than risk his fiancée’s future, even as he confronts the irresponsible patient who infected him—testing his ethics, pride, and capacity for sacrifice.