"Actor: Hiroshi Tachikawa"

• Yojimbo | DVD | (06/11/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This semi-comic 1961 film by legendary director Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Ran) was inspired by the American Western genre. Kurosawa mainstay Toshirô Mifune (Seven Samurai) is cast as a drifting samurai for hire who plays both ends against the middle with two warring factions, surviving on his wits and his ability to outrun his own bad luck. Eventually the samurai seeks to eliminate both sides for his own gain and to define his own sense of honour. Yojimbo is striking for its unorthodox treatment of violence and morality, reserving judgment on the actions of its main character and instead presenting an entertaining tale with humour and much visual excitement. One of the inspirations for the "spaghetti westerns" of director Sergio Leone and later surfacing as a remake as Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis, this film offers insight into a director who influenced American films even as he was influenced by them. --Robert Lane, Amazon.com

• Throne Of Blood | DVD | (22/10/2001) from £22.89   |  Saving you £-2.90 (-14.50%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A champion of illumination and experimental shading, Kurosawa brings his unerring eye for indelible images to Shakespeare in this 1957 adaptation of Macbeth. By changing the locale from Birnam Wood to 16th-century Japan, Kurosawa makes an oddball argument for the trans-historicity of Shakespeare's narrative; and indeed, stripped to the bare mechanics of the plot, the tale of cut-throat ambition rewarded (and thwarted) feels infinitely adaptable. What's lost in the translation, of course, is the force and beauty of the language--much of the script of Throne of Blood is maddeningly repetitive or superfluous--but striking visual images (including the surreal Cobweb Forest and some extremely artful gore) replace the sublime poetry. Toshiro Mifune is theatrically intense as Washizu, the samurai fated to betray his friend and master in exchange for the prestige of nobility; he portrays the ill-fated warrior with a passion bordering on violence, and a barely concealed conviviality. Somewhat less successful is Isuzu Yamada as Washizu's scheming wife; her poise and creepy impassivity, chilling at first, soon grows tedious. Kurosawa himself is the star of the show, though, and his masterful use of black-and-white contrast--not to mention his steady, dramatic hand with a battle scene--keeps the proceedings thrilling. A must-see for fans of Japanese cinema, as well as all you devotees of samurai weapons and armour. --Miles Bethany

• Sanjuro | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £10.78   |  Saving you £9.21 (85.44%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Sequel to Kurosawa's own 'Yojimbo' in which the crafty samurai helps a young man and his fellow clansmen save his uncle who has been framed and imprisoned by a corrupt superintendent...

• Criterion Collection: Yojimbo & Sanjuro | Blu Ray | (23/03/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Criterion Collection: Yojimbo | Blu Ray | (23/03/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• I Live In Fear | DVD | (28/03/2005) from £11.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (66.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When a wealthy foundry owner and bullying patriarch decides to move his entire family from Tokyo to Brazil to escape the nuclear holocaust which he fears is imminent his family tries to have him declared mentally incompetent... Made at the height of the Cold War when the superpowers were engaged in series of nuclear tests this blazing attack on complacency was one of the director's most deeply-felt but least commercially successful films. Nonetheless it deserves to be more widely