News

Following the release of the Samurai Collection last year, the BFI are now releasing a new DVD box set of films by legendary Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa. Featuring six of his early films – all of which pre-date his 1948 Drunken Angel – the box-set offers a range of genre and content, providing a fascinating insight into Kurosawa’s development as a director and the influence of wartime propaganda on Japanese cinema.

Sanshiro Sugata (1943)

The first film of the set, Sanshiro Sugata is set in 1882 and follows the eponymous Sugata (Susumu Fujita) as he joins sensei Shogoro Yano (Denjiro Okochi) to learn Judo; a controversial decision, as the new martial art was seen to be supplanting the older art of Jujutsu. During the course of his training, Sugata must learn to control his ambition and temper, as well as to respect others, if he is to master judo and defeat the jujutsu followers...

Over the last few years my interest in Akira Kurosawa has grown and grown, but it isn't as if I have been familiar with his work for all that long. It wasn't until August 25, 2007 that I saw my first Kurosawa film, and just as I assume to be the same for many before and after me, that film was Seven Samurai. I enjoyed it and began my exploration into Kurosawa using that film as my starting point. Since that day in August I have seen twelve more of Kurosawa's features and with Criterion's recent Eclipse release titled "The First Films of Akira Kurosawa" I have added four more to that tally.

This was my first time watching one of Criterion's Eclipse releases, which seem to primarily dedicate themselves to ensuring lesser known films from well known directors never die, and while they don't get the full Criterion treatment they will live on.