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Teruyo Nogami
is a Japanese film script supervisor and author. She is best known for her work on many of Akira Kurosawa's films, a partnership that began in 1950. Life and career Nogami was born in Tokyo as the daughter of Iwao Nogami, a scholar of German literature and professor at Kobe University after the war. In 1943, she graduated from the Metropolitan Girls' School of Home Economics. She entered the library training school. In 1944, she graduated from the Library Training Institute, and took up a position at the former Yamaguchi High School Library in Yamaguchi Prefecture. After the war she returned to Tokyo and in 1946 she joined the ''People's Daily'' and in 1947 she joined Yakumo Shoten. When she was a student circa 1941, she saw Mansaku Itami's ''Akanishi Kakita'' (1936) and wrote a fan letter to him. She became pen pals with the director. After Itami's death, Nogami became an apprentice script supervisor at Daiei's Kyoto Studio in 1949. She began her career as a script superviso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Takashi Shimura
was a Japanese actor who appeared in over 200 films between 1934 and 1981. He appeared in 21 of Akira Kurosawa's 30 films (more than any other actor), including as a lead actor in ''Drunken Angel'' (1948), ''Rashomon'' (1950), ''Ikiru'' (1952) and ''Seven Samurai'' (1954). He played Professor Kyohei Yamane in Ishirō Honda's original ''Godzilla'' (1954). For his contributions to the arts, the Japanese government decorated Shimura with the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 1974 and the Order of the Rising Sun, 4th Class, Gold Rays with Rosette in 1980. Early life Shimura was born in Ikuno, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. His birth-name was Shimazaki Shōji (島崎捷爾). His forebears were members of the samurai class: in 1868 his grandfather took part in the Battle of Toba–Fushimi during the Boshin War. Shimura entered Ikuno Primary School in 1911 and Kobe First Middle School in 1917. He missed two years of schooling because of a mild case of tuberculosis, and subsequently moved to the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Production Assistant
A production assistant, also known as a PA, is a member of the film crew and is a job title used in filmmaking and television for a person responsible for various aspects of a production. The job of a PA can vary greatly depending on the budget and specific requirements of a production as well as whether the production is unionized. Production assistants on films are sometimes attached to individual actors or filmmakers. Television and feature film In unionized television and feature film, production assistants are usually divided into different categories. Variations exist depending on a show's structure or region of the United States or Canada. *''Office PAs'' usually spend most hours in the respective show's production office handling such tasks as phones, deliveries, script copies, lunch pick-ups, and related tasks in coordination with the production manager and production coordinator. *''Set PAs'' work on the physical set of the production, whether on location or on a soun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agency For Cultural Affairs
The is a special body of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). It was set up in 1968 to promote Japanese arts and culture. The agency's budget for FY 2018 rose to ¥107.7 billion. Overview The agency's Cultural Affairs Division disseminates information about the arts within Japan and internationally, and the Cultural Properties Protection Division protects the nation's cultural heritage. The Cultural Affairs Division is concerned with such areas as art and culture promotion, art copyrights, and improvements in the national language. It also supports both national and local arts and cultural festivals, and it funds traveling cultural events in music, theater, dance, art exhibitions, and film-making. Special prizes are offered to encourage young artists and established practitioners, and some grants are given each year to enable them to train abroad. The agency funds national museums of modern art in Kyoto and Tokyo and The National ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
After The Rain (film)
is a 1999 Japanese and French film. The story is based on the last script written by Akira Kurosawa and is directed by his former assistant director of 28 years, Takashi Koizumi. It was awarded a Japanese Academy Award in 1999. It was chosen as Best Film at the Japan Academy Prize ceremony. Synopsis A group of travelers are stranded in a small country inn when the local river floods. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the travelers trapped at the inn. A traveling rōnin (masterless samurai), Ihei Misawa takes it upon himself to cheer everyone up by arranging a splendid feast. Unfortunately he has no money and in order to pay for the feast he visits the local dojos and challenges the masters there for payment, termed in the film as prize fighting. Later, after breaking up a duel between two young retainers of the local clan, the daimyō Shigeaki is impressed by Misawa's skill and temperament, Lord Shigeaki offers Misawa employment as a sword master. Misawa h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madadayo
is a 1993 Japanese comedy-drama film. It is the thirtieth and final film to be completed by Akira Kurosawa. It was screened out of competition at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. The film was selected as the Japanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 66th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Plot The film is based on the life of Japanese academic and author Hyakken Uchida (1889–1971). It opens with him resigning as professor of German, in the period immediately before the Second World War. The plot is centered on his relationship with his former students, who care for him in his old age. Many of the movie's vignettes, like the search for a missing cat and the time Uchida spent in a one-room hut after his home was destroyed in a bombing raid, come from Uchida's own writings, but the movie also gives Kurosawa the chance to comment on aspects of modern Japanese history like the American occupation of Japan that he had only been able to explore indirectly i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhapsody In August
is a 1991 Japanese film by Akira Kurosawa based on the novel ''Nabe no naka'' by Kiyoko Murata. The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, who lost her husband in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies. American film star Richard Gere appears as Suzujiro's son Clark. The film was selected as the Japanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. ''Rhapsody in August'' is one of only three sole-directed Kurosawa movies to feature a female lead, and the first in nearly half a century. The others are ''The Most Beautiful'' (1944) and ''No Regrets for Our Youth'' (1946). However, Kurosawa also directed most of the female-led ''Uma'' (1941), on which he was credited as assistant director. Plot ''Rhapsody in August'' is a tale of three generations in a post-war Japanese fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dreams (1990 Film)
is a 1990 magical realist film of eight vignettes written and directed by Akira Kurosawa, starring Akira Terao, Martin Scorsese, Chishū Ryū, Mieko Harada and Mitsuko Baisho. It was inspired by actual recurring dreams that Kurosawa said he had repeatedly. It was his first film in 45 years in which he was the sole author of the screenplay. An international co-production of Japan and the United States, ''Dreams'' was made five years after ''Ran'', with assistance from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, and funded by Warner Bros. The film was screened out of competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, and has consistently received positive reviews. ''Dreams'' addresses themes such as childhood, spirituality, art, death, and mistakes and transgressions made by humans against nature. Plot The film does not have a single narrative, but is rather episodic in nature, following the adventures of a "surrogate Kurosawa" (often recognizable by his wearing Kurosawa's trademark hat) thro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ran (film)
is a 1985 epic historical drama film directed, edited and co-written by Akira Kurosawa. The plot derives from William Shakespeare's ''King Lear'' and includes segments based on legends of the ''daimyō'' Mōri Motonari. The film stars Tatsuya Nakadai as Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging ''Sengoku''-period warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons. Like most of Kurosawa's work in the 1970s and 80s, ''Ran'' is an international production, in this case a Japanese-French venture produced by Herald Ace, Nippon Herald Films, and Greenwich Film Productions. Production planning went through a long period of preparation. Kurosawa conceived the idea of ''Ran'' in the mid-1970s, when he read about Motonari, who was famous for having three highly loyal sons. Kurosawa devised a plot in which the sons become antagonists of their father. Although the film became heavily inspired by Shakespeare's play ''King Lear'', Kurosawa began using it only after he had started prepa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kagemusha
is a 1980 jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It is set in the Sengoku period of Japanese history and tells the story of a lower-class criminal who is taught to impersonate the dying ''daimyō'' Takeda Shingen to dissuade opposing lords from attacking the newly vulnerable clan. ''Kagemusha'' is the Japanese term for a political decoy, literally meaning "shadow warrior". The film ends with the climactic 1575 Battle of Nagashino. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival (tied with '' All That Jazz''). It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and received other honours. In 2009 the film was voted at No. 59 on the list of ''The Greatest Japanese Films of All Time'' by Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo. Plot During the Sengoku period, Takeda Shingen, ''daimyō'' of the Takeda clan, meets a thief his brother Nobukado spared from crucifixion due to the thief's uncanny resemblance to Shingen; the brothers agree that he would ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dersu Uzala (1975 Film)
''Dersu Uzala'' (russian: Дерсу Узала, ja, デルス·ウザーラ, ''Derusu Uzāra''; alternative U.S. title: ''Dersu Uzala: The Hunter'') is a 1975 Soviet-Japanese film directed and co-written by Akira Kurosawa, his only non-Japanese-language film and his only 70mm film. The film is based on the 1923 memoir ''Dersu Uzala'' (which was named after the native trapper) by Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev, about his exploration of the Sikhote-Alin region of the Russian Far East over the course of multiple expeditions in the early 20th century. Shot almost entirely outdoors in the Russian Far East wilderness, the film explores the theme of a native of the forests who is fully integrated into his environment, leading a style of life that will inevitably be destroyed by the advance of civilization. It is also about the growth of respect and deep friendship between two men of profoundly different backgrounds, and about the difficulty of coping with the loss of capability ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Beard
is a 1965 Japanese ''jidaigeki'' film co-written, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa, in his last collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune. Based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's 1959 short story collection, '' Akahige Shinryōtan'', the film takes place in Koishikawa, a district of Edo, towards the end of the Tokugawa period, and is about the relationship between a town doctor and his new trainee. Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel ''Humiliated and Insulted'' provided the source for a subplot about a young girl, Otoyo (Terumi Niki), who is rescued from a brothel. The film looks at the problem of social injustice and explores two of Kurosawa's favorite topics: humanism and existentialism. A few critics have noted the film to be reminiscent in some ways of ''Ikiru''. It is Kurosawa's last black-and-white film. The film was a major box office success in Japan but is known for having caused a rift between Mifune and Kurosawa, with this being the final collaboration between them after working on 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High And Low (1963 Film)
is a 1963 Japanese police procedural crime film directed by Akira Kurosawa, starring Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai and Kyōko Kagawa. The film is loosely based on the 1959 novel '' King's Ransom'' by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter). Plot A wealthy executive named Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) is in a struggle to gain control of a company called National Shoes. One faction wants the company to make cheap, low quality shoes for the impulse market as opposed to the sturdy and high quality shoes currently being produced. Gondo believes that the long-term future of the company will be best served by well made shoes with modern styling, though this plan is unpopular because it means lower profits in the short term. He has secretly set up a leveraged buyout to gain control of the company, mortgaging all he has. Just as he is about to put his plan into action, he receives a phone call from someone claiming to have kidnapped his son, Jun. Gondo is prepared to pay the ransom, but the call is dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
