Round-up 14: Kurosawa and Friends

Spring weather went to shit fast. Clouds and rain occupy most of the daylight now. Sometimes I genuinely wonder about the psychology of people who choose to live here. I double checked my facts before writing this, and I’m still correct; Buffalo, New York, and the surrounding metropolitan area are in the top five cloudiest regions of the entire country. Over three hundred days of the year are consistently cloudy. This has to have an effect on those who live here. Speaking for myself, it definitely does. I suppose the one positive to this observation is that it is good movie-watching weather. You get a little burnt out after a while, though, movies or not, on the lack of sunlight. I digress, I guess I’m just whining and complaining some more by this point. It was a pretty great week for me on the film front, a bunch of new material that challenged my typical route of genre.

            As I alluded to at the end of last week, I had one last film to discuss that really has sat with me in all the most disturbing ways. Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt (2012) follows a lonely man divorced from his wife and estranged from his son; he teaches at a local nursery for small children, and despite his core friend group, he is alienated from comfortable society. His luck starts to change when he meets a young woman, and his son begins to trickle back into his life, but everything is suddenly uprooted when a girl from the nursery accuses him of sexual assault, triggering a domino effect of destruction in his path. This is a disturbing film from the perspective of innocence: both with the young girl, confused and mentored by those around her to believe the lie she created, as well as with the protagonist who has done nothing wrong, but is facing the worst consequences for the aforementioned lie. This is a powerful script that is masterfully directed by Vinterberg, but one I will likely never watch again. A journey through the absolute worst outcome of a natural lie, a situation where no one can truly be blamed, but paradoxically, everyone is at fault.

Wanting to start the week off on a different note than I had in weeks past, I went to Netflix and popped on a flick I’d been beating around the bush on ever since I first heard of it. Godzilla Minus One (2023), written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, is a retelling of the classic Japanese monster story through the context of post-World War II. It picks up just at the end of the war, with our protagonist caught in a brilliantly executed moral quandary regarding kamikazes and the specific expectations of Japanese culture at the time. The idea of honor and morality is peppered throughout a melodrama that bubbles beneath the surface of Godzilla’s repeated attacks. That’s what stuck out to me the most when watching, and probably a majority of why I enjoyed it so much – there wasn’t any mindless action and destruction, there was weight behind every beat, and that’s something you don’t see in a lot of American action films. This was an absolute blast, and while normally I’m not a fan of setting up sequels right at the end, in this case, it was more than welcome. I’d love to see another installment.

Deciding to keep on the Japanese cinema train, I turned to the absolute master of the craft, Mr. Akira Kurosawa. I had seen his widely accepted magnum opus, Seven Samurai (1954), over a few viewings in the past (one of my most treasured Criterions), but had never journeyed into the rest of his work. Hearing about Spike Lee’s remake of High and Low (1963) coming out later this year, I decided that would be a good place to start. I was not disappointed whatsoever. This absolute firecracker of a crime film clearly set the stage for many of the ones to follow. The film opens with exposition on the protagonist’s line of work and quickly delves into a conflict of good guys as they are manipulated and watched by a kidnapper of one of their own. A majority of the story takes place in contained spaces and settings, only heightening the tension and mystery around the criminal in question. About halfway through, there’s a stunningly shot and executed chase/action sequence that perfectly bridges the two halves of the story. This was the most fun I’ve had watching an older international film in a long while. Strongly recommended to anyone who likes the crime genre; you’ll inevitably see many parallels to your own personal favorites.

The next evening, noticing that a large number of Kurosawa’s films are on HBO Max, I dove into another one of his masterpieces, Rashomon (1950). A much different structure and approach than the previous, and arguably paced just as uniquely. The story follows three different perspectives on the same crime; a rape and subsequent murder, and the challenges that come with so many different alterations of the truth. This was the most engaging aspect of the film, the fluttering between views, but I must admit that after a while, it grows slightly tired. Reading some reviews of the film, I can understand the influence it had on the international film market, but I fear time hasn’t been the most kind to its rewatchability. That being said, it holds great weight in both themes of feminism and the psychology of human memory.

Next, a Chinese film from one of my favorite filmmakers, based on just a single film of his. John Woo stole my heart with his 90s classic Hardboiled, but it’s A Better Tomorrow (1986) that teases the audience with a far more provocative story, at least dramatically speaking. The story follows three individuals, two of whom are underworld criminals involved with organized crime, and the third is an aspiring police detective. The drama and subsequent black comedy of the film surrounds the former two’s desire to escape their life of crime and for the brothers to be reunited following the death of their father. While not as gun-ho as Hardboiled, the action, when it does happen, is over the top and as fun to be expected from Mr. Woo. I particularly enjoyed the balance between comedy and familial drama, a welcome inclusion to the action genre that made all three of the leading characters that much more likable. This also made the final action scene go just a little bit harder, given that I actually cared a great deal for those involved. Chow Yun-Fat once again steals every single part he’s in.

I wrapped up the week with one more Kurosawa, and to this point in my limited exposure to his work, my absolute favorite so far. In the twilight years of his career, Mr. Kurosawa blessed us with his legendary retelling of William Shakespeare’s King Lear; Ran (1985) is a war epic surrounding a medieval Japanese warlord as he desperately seeks to retire, all by giving away his vast empire to his three sons. The story wastes no time jumping straight into the conflict between the brothers, as they all have their own emotional vices and flaws, which flare from their brightly colored suits. The scale of the war sequences to follow genuinely overwhelmed me. There are hundreds of extras on screen at a single time, gunfire combined with the blood splatters from the katanas, and the howls of those throwing down. It’s watching an entire kingdom fall over the span of three hours, and with that, a family splitting up through greed and lust. This is an absolute masterpiece of a film, one that demands to be watched again and dissected. So much dialogue came off like poetry that I know damn well some of it went over my head. This is, to me, the number one benchmark for this subgenre of action and war films. A must-see for anyone who loves the area, but even for those unsure of the content, I implore you to go in with an open mind, because by the time the credits roll, you’ll have experienced a whole war through a wildly original lens. Something you don’t get a lot these days...

            I’d call this one of my most successful movie-watching weeks in a while! I’d been wanting to dive into Akira Kurosawa’s work for a long time, and something about the shitty weather and being locked inside most of the week gave me the motivation to engage with something new. I was not let down at all, I feel inspired and ready to watch some more. Have you seen any of these films? What are your thoughts if so? As always, I highly encourage engagement in the comments below. Until next week, brothers and sisters.