THE FIRST FILMS OF AKIRA KUROSAWA - ECLIPSE SERIES 23 (CRITERION)

Details

• Genre: Animation, Action, Adventure
• Plot: Years before Akira Kurosawa changed the face of cinema with such iconic works as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and Yojimbo, he made his start in the Japanese film industry with four popular and exceptional works, created as World War II raged. All gripping dramas, those rare first films—Sanshiro Sugata; The Most Beautiful; Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two; and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail—are collected here and include a two-part martial arts saga, a portrait of female volunteers helping the war effort, and a kabuki-derived tale of deception. These captivating films are a glorious introduction to a peerless career.; ; SANSHIRO SUGATA (Sugata Sanshirô); Kurosawa shows supreme visual confidence in his debut feature, an adventure that follows the spiritual journey of a young student of judo.; ; THE MOST BEAUTIFUL (Ichiban utsukushiku); Wartime propaganda made artful, Kurosawa’s fascinating portrait of female volunteers at an optics factory during World War II planted the seeds for the elegant social realism of his post war films.; ; SANSHIRO SUGATA, PART TWO (Zoku Sugata Sanshirô); In this sequel to his breakout first film, Kurosawa returns to the epic tale of Sanshiro, who is now on the way to becoming a martial arts master and finds himself up against a host of new enemies.; ; THE MEN WHO TREAD ON THE TIGER’S TAIL (Tora no o wo fumu otokotachi); In this adaptation of a classic Japanese play, Kurosawa brings a centuries-old true story of deception – in which a lord disguises himself as a monk to get past an enemy roadblock – to gripping life.; ; ; With notes on the films by scholar Stephen Prince, author of The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa;
• Runtime: 5:05
• Media Format: Movie