Free Film Screening: Yojimbo, Asian Art Museum, 5 Jul 09
By Ann| July 5, 2009 | ||
| 11:00 am |
Location: Asian Art Museum, Samsung Hall (Space is limited and is on a first-come, first served basis.)
FREE general admission courtesy of Target
Films by Akira Kurosawa
Arguably the most celebrated Japanese filmmaker of all time, Akira Kurosawa had a career that spanned from the Second World War to the early nineties and that stands as a monument of artistic, entertainment, and personal achievement. With the production of Seven Samurai (1954), the most popular and important Japanese film of its time, Kurosawa began a long and fruitful obsession with medieval Japan. Kurosawa pioneered widescreen cinematography in Japan, and his films inspired the “Spaghetti Western” genre in Italy. Kurosawa reinvigorated the samurai film genre in Japan and revitalized the American Western in the process.
11:00 am
Yojimbo (The Bodyguard)
Japan, 1961, 110 minutes, Black and White, DVD, not rated
Japanese with English subtitles
The incomparable Toshiro Mifune stars in Akira Kurosawa’s visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo. To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro turns a war between two evil clans to his own advantage. Remade twice, by Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars) and Walter Hill (Last Man Standing), this exhilarating genre-twister remains one of the most influential films ever produced.
