"Actor: Takashi Shimura"

• Yojimbo & Sanjuro (2 Blu-ray Set) | Blu Ray | (17/03/2025) from £24.97   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  YojimboLike Seven Samurai (1954), Yojimbo was Kurosawa's tribute to the widescreen action Westerns of John Ford and was itself remade as a Western by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Played by the great Toshiro Mifune, the film's enigmatic samurai is a scruffy and itinerant warrior who wanders into a strange town and right into the middle of a war between two clans. Showing his skills with the sword within minutes of his arrival, he soon has the town's rival factions competing for his services.Kurosawa's genius for storytelling combines with thrilling swordplay, a healthy dose of black humour, a soundtrack every bit as atmospheric and amusing as Ennio Morricone's, and a towering performance from Mifune, to make Yojimbo an irresistible widescreen action adventure.SanjuroIn response to the huge critical and commercial success of Yojimbo, Kurosawa and Mifune re-teamed a year later to make Sanjuro, a hilarious comedy of manners altogether more light-hearted than its predecessor.The story has Sanjuro (Mifune) running lazy rings around nine naïve and clean-cut samurai and two genteel ladies, whilst also cleaning up a spot of corruption in local government. Whilst Kurosawa plays most of it for laughs, expertly parodying the conventions of Japanese period action films, he stages a startling switch of mood with an intense finale which may well be the briefest, and most breathtaking duel in all cinema.Extras¢ Newly restored in 4K and presented in High Definition¢ Newly recorded interview with Jasper Sharp (2024)¢ Audio commentary on Yojimbo by film critic Philip Kemp¢ Introduction to Sanjuro by filmmaker Alex Cox (2003, 5 mins)¢ Interview with filmmaker Alex Cox (2003, 9 mins)¢ Original trailers for both films¢ **FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Illustrated booklet featuring new and archival essays on both films, original reviews and full film credits¢ Other extras TBC

• 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

• Drunken Angel | DVD | (25/07/2005) from £10.35   |  Saving you £9.64 (93.14%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Post-war Japan anatomised in the combative relationship between an alcoholic doctor (Takeshi Shimura) and his patient (Toshiro Mifune) a wounded young gangster. This is the film that was considered to be Kurosawa's breakthrough movie illuminating themes that would go on to dominate his succeeding work. 'Drunken Angel' also marked his first - of many - collaborations with Toshiro Mifune here playing the tubercular Yakuza hoodlum.

• Rashomon (DVD) | DVD | (21/09/2015) from £18.38   |  Saving you £3.37 (20.28%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa is more than a classic: it's a cinematic archetype that has served as a template for many a film since. (Rashomon's most direct influence was on a Western remake, The Outrage, starring Paul Newman and directed by Martin Ritt.) In essence, the facts surrounding a rape and murder are told from four different and contradictory points of view, suggesting the nature of truth is something less than absolute. The cast, headed by Kurosawa's favourite actor, Toshiro Mifune, is superb. --Tom Keogh

• High And Low | DVD | (28/03/2005) from £14.49   |  Saving you £5.50 (37.96%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Kurosawa drew on the thriller 'King's Ransom' by Ed McBain (aka Evan Hunter) for this contemporary study of the inequalities and hierarchical rigidity of modern Japan. In the first half of the film set in a single room an industrialist agonises on whether to pay the huge ransom demanded by kidnappers who have mistakenly snatched his chauffeur's son instead of his own. The second half of the film shot in a frenzied restless style on sleazy urban locations concentrates on the polic

• Stray Dog | DVD | (25/03/2002) from £11.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (66.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog is a masterful mix of film noir and police thriller set on the sweltering mean streets of Occupied Tokyo. When rookie detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) has his pistol stolen from his pocket while on a bus his frantic attempts to track down the thief lead him to an illegal weapons market in the Tokyo underworld. But the gun has already passed from the pickpocket to a young gangster and Murakami's gun is identified as the weapon in the shooting of a woman

• Hidden Fortress | DVD | (25/03/2002) from £25.63   |  Saving you £-5.64 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A story of rival clans hidden gold and a princess in distress The Hidden Fortress is a thrilling mix of fairy story and samurai action movie. It was Kurosawa's first film shot in the widescreen process of Tohoscope and he exploited this to the full in the film's rich variety of landscape locations including the slopes of Mount Fuji. The Hidden Fortress became Kurosawa's biggest box-office hit to date and won several awards including the Golden Bear at the 1959 Berlin Film Fest

• 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...

• The Bad Sleep Well | DVD | (25/07/2005) from £14.59   |  Saving you £5.40 (37.01%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A tense re-working of Hamlet (adapted from a novel by Ed McBain) is a biting expos of the corruption and politics of greed at the heart of Japanese business. Beautifully photographed in ravishing black and white Tohoscope this is original Japanese version never before released in Europe. A young man marries the boss's daughter as part of a scheme to take revenge on the influential businessman who forced his father to commit suicide. Leisurely paced bitterly ironic the film emplo

• The Mysterians | DVD | (13/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Join mankind's most treacherous battle for survival! From the director of the original Kaiju classic Godzilla comes The Mysterians - available on DVD for the first time! After a Japanese town is totally destroyed the military arrive to investigate. They encounter a giant robot that is decimating everything in its path. A dome appears out of the ground and a group of scientists are invited to meet the alien Mysterians from the planet Mysteroid. The Mysterians have come in peace all they ask humanity for is three-square kilometers of land and the right to interbreed with Earth women to repopulate their species. Outraged at such a suggestion humanity declares war on the Mysterians which leads to the revelation of the aliens' sinister secrets. However Earth stands little chance against the technologically advanced beings unless a group of scientists can come up with a super weapon to use against them. The Mysterians was the first colour Japanese science fiction film to be shot in widescreen. The creative team responsible for Godzilla reunited for the production and the special effects are striking. Flying saucers zeppelin-type aircraft ray-gun blasts mass floods and violent explosions are fantastically executed setting the standard for model effects and science fiction art design for years to come. Vibrant and bursting with action The Mysterians is an arresting vision of futuristic warfare and a cautionary tale for the atomic age; a treat not only for robot fanatics and cult sci-fi film fans but one of Ishiro Honda's most celebrated and spectacular extravaganzas.

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

• Rashomon | DVD | (22/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa is more than a classic: it's a cinematic archetype that has served as a template for many a film since. (Rashomon's most direct influence was on a Western remake, The Outrage, starring Paul Newman and directed by Martin Ritt.) In essence, the facts surrounding a rape and murder are told from four different and contradictory points of view, suggesting the nature of truth is something less than absolute. The cast, headed by Kurosawa's favourite actor, Toshiro Mifune, is superb. --Tom Keogh

• Scandal | DVD | (14/11/2005) from £5.54   |  Saving you £14.45 (72.30%)   |  RRP £19.99

  On holiday in the snow-covered mountains young painter Ichiro Aoye (Toshiro Mifune) has a chance meeting with the popular singer Miyako Saijo (Shirley Yamaguchi). After giving her a ride back to the hotel where they are both staying Ichiro is photographed with Miyako by paparazzi. A magazine creates an expos of their 'secret romance' based around this photograph and the brooding Ichiro ignites a bitter and dirty libel case in order to restore their honour... Akira Kurosawa's

• Seven Samuari (Blu-ray Steelbook) | Blu Ray | (21/04/2014) from £21.98   |  Saving you £-1.99 (-10.00%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Limited Edition Steelbook - includes debossed title treatment. In sixteenth-century Japan a poor village is raided every year by a group of bandits until, driven to the brink of starvation, the villagers decide to hire professional warriors to protect them. With only three meagre meals a day to offer as payment, their quest seems an impossible one. Kurosawa's masterpiece testifies to his admiration for the classic Western, and in 1960 John Sturges repaid the compliments by remaking Seven Samurai as The Magnificent Seven.

• 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

• Sonny Chiba Collection - Vol. 2 | DVD | (19/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Three great films from the Japanese king of hardboiled ass-kicking Sonny Chiba! Timeslip (aka G.I. Samurai) (1979): A Japanese Army unit is mysteriously transported 400 years back in time to the warring states period of Japanese history and ends up facing an army of Samurai warriors... Golgo 13 (1973): Sonny Chiba stars as the underworld's no.1 hitman in this hardboiled action-packed adaptation of Japan's all-time bestselling manga... The Bullet Train (1975):

• Lala Pipo-A Lot Of People | DVD | (08/02/2010) from £9.98   |  Saving you £7.00 (87.61%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Lalapipo: A Lot of People

• Zatoichi | DVD | (20/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo The gentle breeze the murmur of a babbling brook the scent of plums. These memories call Zatoichi the blind swordsman back to a once-loved village. But memories are deceptive and he arrives to find things much changed. The former boss Hyoroku has been reduced to a carver of statues of Jizo the Buddha of Healing and his daughter Umeno has become a hostess and as she describes herself one of the bad ones. Control of the village is split between a former travelling merchant Eboshiya and his son Masagoro. Eboshiya befriends Zatoichi and seeks his aid against Masagoro's minder the drunken samurai Yojimbo the crooked crook. When a masseur is killed amidst rumours that a large amount of gold has been secreted in the village the two factions begin to size each other up. It is at this point that Masagoro's younger son suddenly decides his father needs more protection and calls on the services of the contract killer Kuzuryu... Zatoichi's Pilgrimage A girl is assaulted on the highway and Zatoichi is embarassed to find himself acting as midwife to a dying woman. Entrusted with the baby he embarks on a mission to the village of Dashu to deliver the baby to the father Satoro. When there he is waylaid and cheated by Seji a young stooge of the local gang whose ageing father is Dashu's law enforcement officer. To add to his miseries he is dogged by a boy who delights in stoning him and running away. Dashu's loan shark gamblers are on the point of seizing Satoro's sister Oyae to become a sex slave in forfeit for an unpaid debt and with the arrival of Satoro the town begins to heat up. In the process of resolving Oyae's financial difficulties Zatoichi reveals himself as master of a wide range of martial skills as well as finding time to teach certain hoodlums the intricacies of nude dancing... Zatoichi At The Blood Fest The endless travels of the blind swordsman have unexpectedly led him back to the town of Kasama. Zatoichi's arrival has coincided with a welcome home feast for Shinbei his childhood friend. Shinbei has returned home a successful businessman and pays the town's taxes which it cannot afford apparently due to the poor rice harvest. But Shinbei's motives are far from pure. With the peasants now in his debt he is free to plunder their quarry and to sell their stone across country. In order to save his hometown Zatoichi must confront his former friend and end the conspiracy of rice and stone. Zatoichi Meets The One Armed Swordsman A one-armed swordsman saves the life of a young boy sentenced to death for stopping an official procession. The local peasants however suffer in the aftermath as all are massacred and Zatoichi is caught up in the maelstrom...