Page 10 - Pastiche Vol 1 Edition 1 January 2019

The Quiet Duel starring Toshiro Mifune was the first film for Daiei
Studios after Kurosawa, Kajiro Yamamoto, Mikio Naruse and Senkichi
Taniguchi along with producer Sōjirō Motoki formed a new
independent production unit called Film Art Association. Released in
March 1949, it was a box office success, but is generally considered one
of the director's lesser achievements. Stray Dog (1949), was the first
Japanese detective movie, adapted from an unpublished novel by
Kurosawa, and the director's first collaboration with screenwriter
Ryuzo Kikushima, who later help to script eight other Kurosawa films.
The film is considered a precursor to the contemporary police
procedural and buddy cop film genres. Inspired by the director's
personal experiences with, and anger towards, Japanese yellow Still from Rashomon, 1950
journalism Shochiku released Scandal, in April 1950 but Kurosawa
regarded it as dramatically unfocused and unsatisfactory. However Rashomon in 1950 won
him and Japanese cinema a whole new international audience.

Shooting of Rashomon began on July 7, 1950, and premiered at Tokyo's Imperial Theatre on
August 25, expanding nationwide the following day. The movie was met by lukewarm
reviews, with many critics puzzled by its unique theme and treatment. Rashomon was
awarded the Golden Lion, at the prestigious Venice Film Festival on September 10, 1951.
Kurosawa's next film for Shochiku, The Idiot was the director's least successful works.
However Ikiru opened in October 1952 won Kurosawa his second Kinema Junpo "Best Film"
award—and enormous box office success. It remains the most acclaimed of all the artist's
films set in the modern era.

Seven Samurai opened in April 1954, was given a full epic treatment, with a
huge cast and meticulously detailed action, stretching out to almost three-
and-a-half hours of screen time and the most expensive Japanese film ever
made at the time and regarded as the greatest Japanese film ever made.
Record of a Living Being (1955) was inspired by the radioactive rainstorms
in Japan caused by nuclear tests in the Pacific in 1954. It is considered to be
among the finest films dealing with the psychological effects of the global
nuclear stalemate.

Kurosawa's next film, Throne of Blood, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth was
filmed in 1956 and released in January 1957, earned a place among the most celebrated
Shakespeare adaptations. The Lower Depths, based on a play by Maxim Gorky, was
premiered in September 1957. Released in December 1958, The Hidden Fortress action-
adventure comedy-drama became an enormous box office success in Japan and appreciated
by critics both in Japan and abroad.

To make the studio's potential losses smaller and allowing the director more artistic
freedom as co-producer, Kurosawa Production Company was established in April 1959, with
Toho as majority shareholder.
contd...

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