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.

2:00 pm
Sanjuro
Japan, 1962, 96 minutes, Black and White, DVD, not rated
Japanese with English subtitles

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Akira Kurosawa’s tightly paced Sanjuro. In this sly companion piece to Yojimbo, the jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan’s evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a “proper” samurai on its ear.

Source: http://www.asianart.org/samurai/films.htm#july5

Related Entries

• Free Film Screening: Yojimbo, Asian Art Museum, 5 Jul 09
• Takashi Miike’s “13 ASSASSINS” opens 5/20 in San Francisco and Berkeley
• Free Private Screening of 20th Century Boys 1 at Viz Cinema, 17 Dec 09
• KAMIKAZE GIRLS: Free Film Screening in Japantown, 14 Aug 09

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.

Source: http://www.asianart.org/samurai/films.htm#july5

Related Entries

• Free Film Screening: Sanjuro, Asian Art Museum, 5 Jul 09
• Takashi Miike’s “13 ASSASSINS” opens 5/20 in San Francisco and Berkeley
• Free Private Screening of 20th Century Boys 1 at Viz Cinema, 17 Dec 09
• KAMIKAZE GIRLS: Free Film Screening in Japantown, 14 Aug 09

Ikiru
Akira Kurosawa (Japan, 1952)
Japanese with English Subtitles

In Kurosawa’s humanist masterpiece, an ordinary civil servant discovers what it means to live. This Japanese Everyman was perhaps Takashi Shimura’s greatest role.

Location: UC Berkeley, Pacific Film Archive Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way [View Directions]

Tickets:
$5.50 BAM/PFA members, UC Berkeley students
$9.50 Adults (18-64)
$6.50 UC Berkeley faculty and staff, Non-UC Berkeley students, Senior citizens (65 & over), Disabled persons, Youth (17 & under)
[Ticket purchase information]

For more information visit: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/film/FN17201

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