Movielogr

Mifune: The Last Samurai (2016)

Directed by Steven Okazaki

Documentary | Biography | History

Overview

An account of the life and work of legendary Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune (1920-97), the most prominent actor of the Golden Age of Japanese cinema.

Length 81 minutes

Actors

Steven Spielberg | Martin Scorsese | Keanu Reeves | Toshirō Mifune | Yoshio Tsuchiya | Koji Yakusho | Kyôko Kagawa | Yôko Tsukasa | Takeshi Katô | Hisao Kurosawa | Kaoru Yachigusa | Yōsuke Natsuki | Teruyo Nogami | Sadao Nakajima | Haruo Nakajima | Terumi Niki | Shirô Mifune | Tadao Sato | Hirohito | Kanzô Uni | Wataru Akashi

Viewing History (seen 2 times)

Date ViewedDeviceFormatSourceRating
04/25/2021ComputerBroadcastOther7 stars
01/09/2017Movie ScreenDigitalTheater7.5 stars
 

Viewing Notes

I’ve been wanting to revisit this for the past couple of years but oddly it’s not been available via streaming or DVD. Glad it popped up again on DKU’s Mifune Sunday programming. This isn’t a stellar deep dive or anything but a glossy overview of chanbara, Akira Kurosawa, and filmmaking as it pertains to Mifune’s career. Again, the interviews with his co-stars are the best thing here and worth the watch. I’m guessing that since they wanted to use the pics and movie clips the filmmakers couldn’t go hard on Toho or Mifune. Would love to see a doc really tackle the studio system from 40s, 50s, 60s Japan and take apart Toho. It was cool to hear Youko Tsukasa say that “Toho wasn’t a studio for women and didn’t know what to do with them” but that’s all we get; you know there’s a whole story worth telling right there.

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