I Live In Fear Is A Brutal Rumination on Inescapable Paranoia

In I Live in Fear, the past doesn't just have an ominous presence, it practically blankets the proceedings. The horrors that atomic warfare have unleashed on Japan inform the tormented psychological state of the protagonist of this 1955 Akira Kurosawa motion picture.  That protagonist is middle-aged man Kiichi Nakajima (Toshiro Mifune), whose immense level of anxiety over the prospect of further atomic bombs coming alone and further damaging his world are what instill in him paranoia over making sure he's protected from any further bombings. At first, such paranoia leads him to merely build out a huge bomb shelter, but eventually, he concocts a scheme to travel to what he deems the only safe place on the planet: Brazil.

Stray Dog Meditates On Morality With Great Performances and Exceptional Blocking

Akira Kurosawa is handily one of my favorite filmmakers of all-time. Not exactly the most original sentiment, I agree, but gosh, I just love his movies to pieces. In particular, I love the blocking in his films, the arrangement of characters in a given shot, not to mention their body language, can be immediate visual indicators of who these characters are as people. Take a shot (pictured below) from Stray Dog, for instance, that films three characters in an interrogation room head-on. The woman being interrogated is closest to the camera and clearly evokes a sense of assured confidence that she can get out of this situation, while in the far back is the films protagonist, Detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune), all buttoned up, nervous and kept at a distance from someone he wants answers from.

Akira Kurosawa Laid The Groundwork For Inspirational Sports Movies With His Directorial Debut Sanshiro Sugata

There was a time when the world of cinema didn't include director Akira Kurosawa. It's hard to even imagine, it's like picturing comic strips with Peanuts or rock n' roll music without The Beatles, but there was indeed a time period for filmmaking before Kurosawa started out his directorial career. Said career began with the motion picture Sanshiro Sugata, which was released in Japan in March 1943 (it wouldn't debut in America for three more decades in April 1974) to resounding success that paved the way for the numerous movies Kurosawa had yet to make. Many of those movies are superior to Sanshiro Sugata, but this is still a solid movie with plenty to offer beyond its historical importance.

The Original Godzilla Has Some Weak Lead Characters But An Impressively Realized Ominous Tone

If you had told any of the members of the cast and crew of the original 1954 Godzilla film that what they were working on would end up being one of the most influential features of the 20th century, they likely would have thought you were batty at best. But that's just what happened, as a somber exercise in contemplating the consequences of nuclear warfare through the prism of a monster movie turned out to be something that resonated with audiences across the globe to such a profound point that the monstrous Godzilla is still making new movies in both his home country of Japan and in the United States of America.

Drunken Angel Works As Both A Post-WWII Parable And A Universally Compelling Tale In Its Own Right

SPOILERS FOR DRUNKEN ANGEL ARE AHEAD!!!

By the time Akira Kurosawa's 1948 film Drunken Angel begins, World War II has concluded, but the actions of said war are constantly being felt by so much of the population of Japan, who are just trying to adjust to some form of conventional reality. One person looking to just get by is Sanada (Takashi Shimura), a doctor who finds solace in helping patients and even more solace in consuming copious amounts of alcohol. Typically against his own better judgment, Sanada can't give up on any patient in need and that includes local ruffian Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifune), a young man who Sanada discovers has tuberculous, a condition that can only be cured if Matsunaga slows down his life.

Ikiru Review (Classic Write-Up)

There are plenty of amazing moments to be found in Hamilton, many of which show a sense of wisdom that can only be accurately described as "remarkable". One such moment arrives in one of the final songs of the musical, as Alexander Hamilton is about to finally succumb to death, something he imagines so much it feels more like a memory. As the darkness envelops him, he comes to a shocking realization over what the word legacy truly means. I'll let Lin-Manuel Miranda's lyrics take it from here:

Rashomon Review (Classic Write-Up)

Similar to his endlessly remade 1954 work Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa's 1950 feature film Rashomon became so well-known and influential that its unique story structure (various individuals give their own retelling of a murder) was aped by countless movies and TV shows for decades to come. The first time I can recollect that I saw that specific narrative utilized was in an episode of Garfield & Friends and, of course, it wouldn't be the last time that style of storytelling would pop up again in the media I consumed. Watching Rashomon for the first time, it's easy to see why such an entertaining movie would spawn so many imitators, even if, for reasons I'll detail shortly, it doesn't quite stack up to the other Kurosawa pictures I've seen.