Jan 28, 2021

From the 1988 film My Neighbor Totoro, best known to American audiences from the 2006 English-dub version released by Disney, the titular Totoro has become a brand icon for Studio Ghibli - a silent, imposing counterpart to Mickey Mouse. Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and based on his own childhood, My Neighbor...

Jan 20, 2021

We’re wrapping up our Kurosawa trilogy with 1958’s The Hidden Fortress. Cited often as one of George Lucas’s direct inspirations for Star Wars, The Hidden Fortress features two bumbling fools, a fugitive princess, a badass swordsman, and a scarred bad guy who carries a grudge but is ultimately redeemed by his good...

Jan 13, 2021

We’re continuing the month with Kurosawa’s 1954 film Seven Samurai. Released by Toho Studios the same year as the first Godzilla, Seven Samurai actually cost more than the monster flick and took three times as long to shoot, and though both would be remembered as two of the greatest films ever made, Seven Samurai...

Jan 6, 2021

We’re kicking Japanese classics month off with Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon. Notable for its use of conflicting points-of-view on the same event, Rashomon has become synonymous for storytelling by unreliable narrators or differing takes on a simultaneous scene. Rashomon is considered one of the greatest...