Akira Kurosawa Retrospective: Bangkok celebrates a Japanese film master

Bangkok’s film geeks may prove strangely elusive over the next two weeks. And who can blame them. The kind folks over at the Japan Foundation Bangkok, together with the Embassy of Japan, are screening 25 Akira Kurosawa movies -- for free.   

This retrospective, which commemorates the 100th anniversary of the late Japanese director’s birth and kicked off last night with a screening of his most acclaimed and influential film "Rashomon," takes place at CentralWorld’s SF Cinema until January 19.  
 

As for the line-up, it draws mostly from the humanist director’s most productive period -- the 1940s through to the early 1960s -- and also nicely encapsulates his rarely publicized fondness for hopscotching between genres. In other words, it ain’t all Samurai films.  
 
Alongside his acclaimed, Katana-blade swooshing epics -- "Yojimbo," "Sanjuro," "Seven Samurai," etc -- you can also catch many of the socially minded director’s less well known but arguably more subtle and affecting dramas and detective films centerd on post-WWII Japanese life.  
 
This Sunday, for example, Kurosawa’s favorite leading man, Toshiro Mifune, will give a brilliantly loony turn as a TB-afflicted hoodlum in the gritty and morally dicey gangster flick "Drunken Angel." Another late 1940s gem set in a slum-ridden Tokyo, the equally noir-stylish cop thriller "Stray Dog" follows on Monday. 
 
There will also be screenings of many, but not all, of Kurosawa’s adaptions of Western novels and plays: his take on Dostoevsky’s "The Idiot;" the Ed McBain novel inspired "High and Low" and his ominously fog-shrouded, feudal Japanese retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, "Throne of Blood."  

Kurosawa and Thai cross-cultural exchange 

Kurosawa’s influence on Western cinema, be it "The Magnificent Seven," "Star Wars," or, more recently, "The Social Network," is well documented; but what isn’t is how much of an impact he’s had on Thai cinema.  
 

Speaking at the opening ceremony last night, Thai director HSH Prince Chatrichalerm Yukol -- who, like Kurosawa, started out making more neo-realistic fare before moving towards period epics like "The Legend of Suriyothai" –- kicked off the festival’s attempt to redress this imbalance with a short speech.  
 
“The technical quality and story-telling of Rashomon remains unsurpassed and had a big effect on me” he said, before recalling how he’d once had lunch with both Kurosawa and Francis Ford Coppola.  
 
Expect more kudos to be heaped on Kurosawa on January 15, when an as yet unconfirmed panel of upcoming Thai directors will discuss how the behind-camera legend has inspired their work. 

One free ticket per person is available on a first-come first-served basis 30 minutes before each show, and all films will be screened with English subtitles.   

‘Akira Kurosawa 100 Years Retrospective’ Schedule:

Friday January 7: "The Quiet Duel" (7 p.m.)
Saturday January 8: "Judo Saga" (11 a.m.), "The Most Beautiful" (1:20 p.m.), "Judo Saga II" (3:40 p.m.), "The Idiot" (6 p.m.)
Sunday January 9: "No Regrets For Our Youth" (11 a.m.), "One Wonderful Sunday" (1:40 p.m.), "Drunken Angel" (4:20 p.m.), "Scandal" (7 p.m.)
Monday January 10: "Stray Dog" (7 p.m.)
Tuesday January 11: "The Men Who Step on the Tiger's Tail" (7p.m.)
Wednesday January 12: "Ikiru" (7 p.m.)
Thursday January 13: "Seven Samurai" (7 p.m.)
Friday January 14: "I Live in Fear" (7 p.m.)
Saturday January 15: "Throne of Blood" (11 a.m.), "The Lower Depths" (1:40 p.m.), "The Hidden Fortress," followed by a talk on Kurosawa’s influence on upcoming Thai directors (4:30 p.m.)
Sunday January 16: "The Bad Sleep Well" (11 a.m.), "Yojimbo" (2:20 p.m.), "Sanjuro" (5 p.m.), "Madadayo" (7:30 p.m.)
Monday January 17: "High and Low" (7 p.m.)
Tuesday January 18: "Red Beard" (7 p.m.)
Wednesday January 19: "Dodesuka-den" (7 p.m.)