Akira Kurasawa

Akira Kurasawa was born in 1910 near Tokyo. He began his career in visual art as a painter and artist. However, while he was a teenager, he got a job in a silent movie theater. He moved on in his career after several years and began to make films for the Japanese military. Despite the oppression upon the content of his films, Kurasawa did not skimp on the finer details of filming. Every thing was meticulously planned out and prepared for his films. With this eye for detail, he plowed into the filmmaker scene. Many of his works were part of international film festivals across the globe. Through these festivals and nominations for various awards, Kurasawa’s films became famous worldwide. In fact, Kurasawa was more popular in the West than in his home country of Japan. Kurasawa died on September 6, 1998. His movie legacy lives on. His ideas and innovative techniques on the set have spread to the West and become the necessities of modern movie making (Decker).

History is a major theme in many of Japan’s popular culture. Films in particular seem to possess the feature of Japan’s own history. Kurasawa is one of the best known for these examples of dramatized history in the Western part of the world. The great director Kurasawa has forged the way for modern filmmakers. He was the first to coin several tricks of the trade as well as laying down the foundations of intriguing plot and character development. Two  of his films in particular are examples of Kurasawa’s work in modern making. Shichinin no Samurai (The Seven Samurai) and Kakushi Toride no San Akunin (The Three Villains of the Hidden Fortress) are some of the biggest influences in modern movie making.

Although graced with two hundred years of uneventful peace, Japanese wartime was well-documented and carried through history in literature and oral tradition. In the film tradition, the term “jidaigeki” means period genre (White). Kurasawa is famous for making these period films, and the term became so popular, that the American director, George Lucas, transformed the word into a fictional religion: Jedi (Decker).

George Lucas’ A New Hope is nearly an exact copy of Kurasawa’s Kakushi Toride no San Akunin. The original story line of Kurasawa’s film begins with two peasants traveling together. Tahei and Matashichi are leftovers from a war and have no place to return home to. They decide to make a break for the neighboring fief. The story is told through their perspective. On their trek through the mountains, they come across sticks filled with gold. This leads them to the introduction of General Rokurota Makabe. Together, the three of them gather all of the gold in the mountains.

Rokurota’s role in this is a sort of bodyguard for the character Princess Yuki. Her kingdom was defeated in the war. She and Rokurota hope to return to their home and use the gold to rebuild the fallen kingdom. During the story, the party picks up a slave girl from an inn they stop at for the night. Through capture and internal struggle among the two peasants in the party, they struggle against opposing armies. However, because of a strong friendship between Rokurota and the general of the opposing army, they are able to escape and rebuild the kingdom.

This certainly sounds familiar. In A new Hope, Princess Leia’s entire planet is destroyed by the Empire. This is compareable to the defeat of Princess Yuki’s conquered territory. Leia, wither crew of Han Solo, Obi-wan Kenobi, C-3PO and R2-D2, and Chewbacca, must take the remaining Jedi (the space age Samurai), to defeat the Empire so that her Kingdom may be restored. It does not take a hard look to realize that the traveling group in this movie is comparable to Kurasawa’s original characters. Obi-wan Kenobi is an experienced soldier, just as Rokurota is an experienced general. Both are skilful in fencing, knowledgeable in tactics, and not easily shaken up when things get tough.

One of the biggest tying points for these two characters is the duel between Rokurota and the general in the opposing army. This corresponds with the duel in A New Hope where Obi-wan fights the main antagonist Darth Vader. In both instances, the duel is a distraction for the rest of the party to sneak away from the enemy lines. Tahei and Matashichi, the Princess and the peasant girl are able to make an escape from the perusing army. The space drama’s circumstances are similar. While Luke Skywalker, the droids, and Princess Leia escape to the getaway space ship, Obi-wan Kenobi distracts Darth Vader in a duel. The fight in The Hidden Fortress is choreographed using spears, but Lucas copies parts of the choreography in the Darth Vader versus Obi-wan duel. These fundamentals were used by George Lucas to make his space Samurai epic adventure.

Kurasawa’s genius plot was not all that Lucas found to be the perfect material for a movie. One of the most common tricks in Kurasawa films is the mood setting. I have noticed that in many of his movies, Kurasawa uses wind and camera pans very carefully. Movement in a scene makes it seem as though the plot is advancing. On multiple occasions in many of his films, Kurasawa uses the wind to create a mood.
Wind in a scene possesses significant symbolism and subliminal mood settings. A fast wind, gusting through the scene, usually signifies some kind of change that the characters are going through or about to go through. A calmer wind may set the mood for romance or anticipation. No wind at all builds suspense. With no movement in the scene, the audience will remain focused on the current moment. There is nothing moving to distract viewers from focusing carefully on the scene being played out. Multiple movies employ this method now. Movement has become very important on a screen. Filming characters walking forward creates a sense of story advancement. Swift moving traffic in the background creates the mood of being in a hurry.  

Also, the camera work was a revolutionary invention, using new techniques to build tension and capture unusual angles of the fight were used. There is a chase scene that takes place in Hidden Fortress where the enemy discovers the main heroes. Rokurota draws his sword, and fells one of the enemies. Several others get away, attempting to escape and tell their leader about what they had found. Rokurota leaps onto his hose and dashes away after his enemies. The camera follows his every move, panning with the movement of the horse, watching its legs blur on the film. The scenery whizzes by. It is as though the audience is clinging on to Rokurota’s horse, being whisked along for the pursuit. Following the horse in the chase scene in The Hidden Fortress rather than planting the camera and just filming the horse fly by creates tension and expectancy for an audience. Rather than just passively watching the film race by, the audience has a chance to run with the Samurai and get an even more realistic sense of what it was like to be on that horse. This is much more effective in setting the mood than a stationary camera watching the horse disappear.

This is most easily compared to in Star Wars by the way the TIE Fighter versus the X-Wing chase scenes are filmed. The camera pans with the flight of the ships from several angles. This gives the audience a sense of movement. This technique almost allows for audience participation. Instead of watching the ships fly by, the viewers are almost riding on the ships, watching from the wing-tip point of view.

All of these techniques originated in Kurasawa’s films. His meticulous attention to detail while filming has inspired directors of modern films to bring that sense of realism to their audiences.

One of the final things Lucas adapted from Kurasawa’s films was a character’s habits. Shichinin no Samurai is a film that made a point to give each of the main characters a drastically unique personality. This film was told more though the perspective of the higher class of Samurai. The film takes place in the Sengoku Period. During this time, the most radical political revolution was taking place. As the Emperor began to fall from his seat of power, the political vacuum began to suck up any number of warlord extremists, happy to take control over the fiefs and Samurai kingdoms of Japan. Peasants were often the unfortunate fodder in these situations. Often, lower class uprisings and revolts were quashed by the powerful classes warring above them. While, politically, the war was above peasants’ heads, rice paddies and other agricultural lands or pastures were laid to waste. Unarmed and subservient, the peasants had no choice but to try to remain on the Samurais’ good sides. This story takes place on such a situation.

“Find hungry Samurai,” says the town elder in Shichinin no Samurai.  

And so the peasants travel to the city and gather seven Samurai to come rescue their rice farm. Working for no more than three bowls of rice a day, the honorable Samurai agree to help the village in defeating the bandits who were robbing their village. The Samurai organize the peasants into an army to defend against the bandits. They fight decisively, depending on the enemy’s unorganized efforts to achieve victory. The village is walled off and successfully defended.

The main character is Kambei. He acts as the leader of the group of seven Samurai and is in charge of organizing the ultimate tactics that lead the peasants to victory. He is introduced in the story when a group of peasants approach him, begging him to help them. A lunatic has captured one of their children and has kept him hostage for more than a day. As the child begins to cry, Kambei sympathizes with the peasants and quickly concocts a plan. One of the peasants shaves his head. Another lends him a Buddhist monk’s robe. Disguised as a harmless monk, Kambei is able to bribe the lunatic into accepting some rice for the child and himself. While the bad guy is distracted, Kambei leaps into the hostage situation and kills the lunatic without bringing harm to the child. Since then, he develops a particular habit of rubbing his buzz cut hair while he is deep in thought.

Lucas worked this quirk into his own character in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Yoda, a wizened and brilliant Jedi has lost all but a few rough strands of his hair. Yoda is a reserved and war-weary soldier with multitudes of experience in commanding troops. The character habit that is played out in Yoda the most is his tendency to rub his head while he is thinking.  This is an obvious similarity between Kurasawa’s character and Lucas’. Yoda is meant to be a similar character to Kambei, and because Lucas was inspired by Kurasawa’s work, he pulled that detail into his own story-line.

The similarities do not end there. In Shichinin no Samurai, Kambei takes on an apprentice during the story. Katsushiro is a young, adamant, and enthusiastic character. He is eager to learn everything he can about being a Samurai. In the story, he is dressed in expensive clothing compared to the rest of the Samurai. He has money, which is a rarity among anyone during this time period. Even rarer, he gives his money away to the peasants so that they may purchase more rice with which to pay the Samurai with. It is never said, but it is obvious that his character is from a noble family. He has ventured out into a world of poverty, seeking to learn to be a Samurai. Katsushiro also forms a fascination with one of the other seven Samurai. Kyuuzou is the finest swordsman among the group. Katsushiro spends much of his time observing Kyuuzou’s masterful techniques and humble habits. He wishes that he will achieve such a masterful talent as Kyuuzou, but doubts himself throughout the story.

Katsushiro is compareable to Luke Skywalker. Luke shares many personality quirks with Katsushiro. Luke is a young and enthusiastic Jedi-to-be who winds up traveling all over the galaxy to learn the ways of the Force, (very similar to the ways of Bushido). After much searching, he meets Yoda. At first, Luke is amazed and awed by everything that Yoda teaches him. He spends a lot of time sulking about how he cannot do things on such a large scale as his master, Yoda. Katsushiro’s obsession with watching Kyuuzou is much the same as Lukes’ affinity for Yoda. Another similarity between the two is that although Luke believes that he is from a family of farmers, his true heritage lays with nobility among Princess Leia’s kingdom. He is removed from Leia’s kingdom at birth and taken to his remote home, never to know of his heritage. This is similar to Katsushiro’s situation. Both are from nobility, and both desire to be great Samurai/Jedi. Both are trained under similar characters.
On the topic of Shichinin no Samurai, Hollywood has also used Kurasawa’s plot in western movies. The Magnificent Seven employs the same story line as Shichinin no Samurai. John Sturges directs the western adaptation of Kurasawa’s original film.
The plot goes along the same lines as Shichinin no Samurai. In the story, a village in the new U.S. territory of Texas is raided by bandits. The bandits occupy the village, kill all of the men, and take advantage of the remaining women. The women are helpless to resist the powerful bandits ravaging their town. Although several bands are formed to protect the town, none are successful. Desperate for assistance, the survivor of the defensive bands reaches the renowned and experienced Marshal Chris Adams. Adams is inclined to turn the offer down, but when his wife is taken by the bandits and killed, he goes on a rampage of vengeance. He employs the men he once put in jail, offering them freedom if they assist him. These men are seven of the greatest criminals he has ever faced.

He takes his band of seven gunslingers to town and liberates the women. The bandits are not ones to be quietly defeated. The town is given just enough time to fortify their borders and train the women to load rifles and assist the magnificent seven in their attack against the bandits. With teamwork, they defeat the bandits and all live happily ever after.

Although the details and settings of the two stories are different, Kurasawa’s plot is so adaptable, it can be made to fit any situation. In both movies, peasants or the lower class are helped to be liberated by a band of seven willing and honorable soldiers.

Not surprisingly, Disney has also found a use for this plot line. A Bugs Life possesses many of the similarities as Kurasawa’s original film. A colony of ants are overrun by grasshoppers. A lone ant ventures out into the world to gather a formidable group of other insects that train the colony of oppressed ants to fight back against the grasshopper army. This goes along perfectly with the plot of Shichinin no Samurai. An oppressed group of people are trained and liberated against impossible odds. Even a children’s’ movie can take on the role of a Kurasawa film.

Kurasawa’s plots are so adaptable and easy to apply to any time period or setting that it has become a mainstream technique for modern movies. Because of these breakthrough concepts, the epics of Kurasawa’s movie making has been carried on into the present day of the movie industry. Because these ideas remain so malleable and adaptable to multiple situations as well as possessing superior photography being used for the time period of Kurasawa, the brilliance of these movies will continue to shine and pass on their traditions to the future of Hollywood.
With his innovative and unique ability to write plot, character development, and dialog, as well as his ground-breaking techniques of photography and film, Akira Kurasawa led the way to modern movie making. Multiple directors have adapted his expertise to suit their own directing tastes. Whether it be the finer details such as character design and personality as with George Lucas’ famous Jedi, or entire plots being rewritten to the stages of western themes or fantasy themes, Kurasawa remains the original in these breakthrough film making techniques.









Works Cited

Akira, Kurasawa. The Hidden Fortress. 1958. DVD. The Criterion   
     Collection, 2002

Akira, Kurasawa. The Seven Samurai. 1954. DVD. The Criterion   
     Collection, 2002
Decker, Ryan. The Power of Rome. 5 May 2004. 30 Apr. 2008
     <http://www.romanorum.net/speech/>.
     This is a project my close friend put together when he was
     attending UNC. He has provided much
     of the biographical information on Akira Kurasawa.

Lasseter, John. A Bug's Life. 1998. DVD. Buena Vista Distribution,
      1998.

Lucas, George. Interview. The Hidden Fortress. 1958. DVD. The
Criterion Collection, 2001.

Lucas, George. Star Wars: A New Hope. 1977. DVD. 20th Century Fox,
     2004.

Lucas George. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. 1980. DVD. 20th
   Century Fox, 2004.