Help, I got @criterionchannl and all I wanna do is binge Kurosawa flicks.

Prior to this I had only seen Rashomon (in film school), which I genuinely love and have referenced more than most other movies in my professional life.

Yeah this is my Kurosawa thread I guess, so anyway I started yesterday with Seven Samurai, which I finished this morning (man it's... long) and was genuinely surprised at how much of that movie feels so fresh given it's one of the most remade stories ever told.

Just finished Throne of Blood, which I can confidently say is the greatest adaptation of Macbeth ever made, and one thing is abundantly clear- Kurosawa knows how to end a movie.

The Hidden Fortress is next. Love the varied depth and complexity of his shot compositions here (really making good use of the newly-invented Tohoscope) and didn't expect it to be so funny.

This 1958 film about feudal Japan has a more complex, engaging, and independent female protagonist in Princess Yuki than 99% of US cinema.

Yojimbo is next. Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone owe their entire careers to this movie. Toshiro Mifune has solidified himself as one of my all time favorite actors with this performance. I mean, this is his reaction when he overhears people planning to kill him:

Sanjuro. A worthy pseudo-sequel. Doesn’t quite pack the same emotional punch as Yojimbo and gets a little too caught up in its expositional approach to storytelling but Kurosawa sticks the landing with the ending once again. No one is cooler than Toshiro Mifune.