Image courtesy of FX
JASH and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH) proudly present works by Akira Kurosawa during the August film serices Akira Kurosawa: The Eternal Master.
Explore the canon of Japan’s legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa with new 4K digital restorations of classics including historical dramas, gripping thrillers, and of course samurai action.
Tickets are available for $9 General Admission; $7 MFAH Members, students with ID, and seniors (65+). Click the button below to learn more and purchase:
JASH Members receive reduced pricing with discount code F26PAR.
Please note these films are in Japanese with English subtitles.
Film Screening Line-Up:
Stray Dog (Noru Inu)
Friday, August 1, 7:00 - 9:00 PM
Stray Dog goes beyond a crime thriller, probing the squalid world of postwar Japan, and the nature of the criminal mind. Rookie detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) has his gun stolen on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo's sweltering streets for the pickpocket whose desperation has led to a life of crime. The cop’s and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami's own dark side.
Ikiru
Sunday, August 3, 5:00 - 7:30 PM
Ikiru shows the director at his most compassionate—affirming life through an exploration of death. Takashi Shimura beautifully portrays an aging bureaucrat with stomach cancer who is impelled to find meaning in his final days. Presented in a radically conceived two-part structure and shot with a perceptive, humanistic clarity of vision, Ikiru is a multifaceted look at what it means to be alive.
The Hidden Fortress (Kakushi-Toride No San-Akunin)
Saturday, August 9, 7:00 - 9:30 PM
Toshiro Mifune is a general charged with guarding his defeated clan’s princess as the two smuggle royal treasure across hostile territory. Accompanying them are a pair of bumbling, conniving peasants who may or may not be their friends. This rip-roaring ride is among the director’s most beloved films and was a primary influence on George Lucas’s Star Wars. The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa’s trademark deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action, and compassionate humanity.
Yojimbo (Yôjinbô)
Sunday, August 10, 5:00 - 7:00 PM
Toshiro Mifune again stars in the visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo. To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily, masterless samurai Sanjuro (Mifune) turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage. Remade twice, by Sergio Leone and Walter Hill, this exhilarating genre-twister remains one of the most influential and entertaining films of all time.
Sanjuro (Tsubaki Sanjûrô)
Friday, August 22, 7:00 - 8:45 PM
In this sly companion piece to Yojimbo, jaded samurai Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune) helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan’s evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a “proper” samurai on its ear. Less brazen in tone than its predecessor but equally entertaining, this classic character’s return is a masterpiece in its own right.
High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku)
Sunday, August 24, 5:00 - 7:30 PM
Toshiro Mifune is a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Kurosawa’s highly influential domestic drama and police procedural. Adapting Ed McBain’s detective novel King’s Ransom, the film moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society. Spike Lee’s upcoming film Highest 2 Lowest is a reinterpretation of High and Low, set in the music industry and starring Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky.