There are plenty of reasons why numerous Akira Kurosawa films are classics, and potentially even timeless, given how fantastically his best movies are paced, filmed, written, and acted. Acting is a skill separate from directing, of course, but good directors will tend to have filmographies filled with great performances, and so Kurosawa can be, at least in part, credited with how many great instances of acting his body of work contains.
Here's a rundown of great Akira Kurosawa movies that are all classics, at least in part, thanks to the fact that each has one or more great performances. To keep things interesting, there’s a limit of one performance per movie, which does mean snubbing six of the seven samurai in a particular 1954 movie, for instance. However, some actors will show up more than once, given Kurosawa had a few he used a number of times, and the best of them delivered the goods in a big way more than once.
10 Tatsuya Nakadai as Takeda Shingen/the Kagemusha
'Kagemusha' (1980)
Image via Toho
A well-made and suitably grand epic, Kagemusha is perhaps one of Akira Kurosawa’s most underrated films, inevitably overshadowed by another large-scale movie he made in the 1980s (more on that later). Kagemusha has an intriguing premise that’s well-explored throughout, centering on a thief who’s made to be a stand-in for a warlord after it’s discovered that the two are identical, and the latter dies unexpectedly.
Given they look identical, it only makes sense for one actor to play both roles, and Tatsuya Nakadai proved more than capable of doing so. Granted, one character – the warlord – isn't around for much of Kagemusha, but it’s still a movie that sees Nakadai acting as an actor, in effect. It’s a layered role, and it’s a testament to his acting prowess that he still manages to make an impression while the rest of the film – namely, all the technical stuff and non-acting related stuff – proves so bold and flashy.
Vitally important for international cinema as a whole, Rashomon was like the equivalent of a star-making role for Akira Kurosawa, as the film’s director. It wasn’t his first, but it was arguably his first masterpiece, telling the story of a single crime that’s recalled in strikingly different ways by several individuals, each perspective seen through a flashback.
As the actors playing the people involved in the central event, Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, and Machiko Kyō are all required to change in subtle/interesting ways within each flashback, but it might be Takashi Shimura, as the unnamed woodcutter and a witness to the crime, who gives the single best performance. He’s one of the characters discussing the complicated nature of the crime in question, and the interesting turn Rashomon takes in its final act – and its ultimate conclusion – really rests on Shimura, and he undeniably delivers.
Takashi Shimura was the most prolific collaborator of Akira Kurosawa’s, but it’s Toshiro Mifune who’s the most notable, given Mifune frequently had lead roles in the Kurosawa films he starred in, while Shimura had more of a mix of leading and supporting roles. The final film Mifune made with Kurosawa, Red Beard, was a brilliant showcase of the former’s talents as an actor, and a pretty solid film within the body of work of the latter, too.
Narratively, Red Beard focuses on a young doctor who, during post-graduate medical training, ends up being tutored by an unusual, stern, but skilled older doctor named Kyojō Niide (sometimes known as Red Beard). Toshiro Mifune is a commanding presence and then some for every second he’s on-screen, and though it’s bittersweet knowing it was the last time he worked with Kurosawa (owing to a falling out between the two), it’s undoubtedly a mightily impressive performance.
Speaking of Toshiro Mifune, he is also one part of the impressive cast for High and Low, with the aforementioned Tatsuya Nakadai and Takashi Shimura also having roles here. Mifune plays the closest thing the film has to a main character: an ambitious executive who becomes the target of an extortionist who kidnaps the wrong child, yet demands the ransom from Mifune’s character anyway.
Though he’s not really a prominent on-screen character until the final act, Tsutomu Yamazaki is fantastic as the person behind the kidnapping/extortion plot, receiving more screen time the closer the police get to finding him. He’s kind of the main focus by the time the final half-hour rolls around, and is particularly great in High and Low’s haunting final scene, which lingers in one’s mind long after the film cuts to black for the last time.
Best summarized as Macbeth, but with samurai, Throne of Blood is another iconic Akira Kurosawa film with Toshiro Mifune in the starring role (sorry for the repetition, but this isn't the last of them, either). Mifune’s character, Taketoki Washizu, is the stand-in for Macbeth, with the film following him and his wife as they conspire to murder their way into further power, with inevitably tragic results.
Isuzu Yamada is brilliant, too, as the film’s equivalent of Lady Macbeth, but so much of Throne of Blood really does rest on Mifune being committed in a way only Mifune can. He goes big here, but never to the point where you feel as though he’s overdoing it. Throne of Blood is sometimes bold, sometimes flashy, and sometimes subdued, with Kurosawa and Mifune being on the same page every step of the way, the latter always matching the energy of any given scene to perfection.
As far as recurring Akira Kurosawa collaborators go, Masayuki Mori is probably the least appreciated and most underrated. He starred in five Kurosawa films made between 1945 and 1960, but given they're generally among the director’s less well-known (with the exception of Rashomon), Masayuki Mori inevitably isn't quite as high profile as say Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, or Tatsuya Nakadai.
Still, Masayuki Mori’s performances are easy to appreciate for anyone willing to seek out the Kurosawa deep cuts he’s in, with his lead performance in the ambitious The Idiot being his best. This is an almost great drama that wasn’t distributed the way it should’ve been, and the full film, as Kurosawa intended it, has been lost to time. Still, what exists of The Idiot – while fractured – is compelling, and Mori oftentimes carries the entire thing with his lead performance.
Yojimbo is one of the best samurai-themed movies ever made, even if it stands some distance away from the sorts of films that could be called traditional samurai flicks. It’s almost more of a crime/drama film (with a little comedy and action) set in samurai times, with a plot that involves a masterless samurai arriving in a town divided by a gang war.
Ever the agent of chaos, he sets about allying himself with both sides so he can effectively get them both to contribute to taking the other out, all very systematically. Yojimbo is the sort of film that’d live or die based on its central performance, and so it’s great news that Toshiro Mifune played that lead role here. He’s very charismatic, physically imposing, and devious, with Mifune making it easy to understand why everyone in the film falls for his character’s charms.
Overall, Ran was an even better historical epic than the comparable Kagemusha and, fittingly, Tatsuya Nakadai – the star of both – was even better in Ran, too. He plays an aging warlord here who attempts to peacefully divide up the land he rules over to his three sons, but not everyone is happy with the arrangement as it’s laid out, leading to chaos, violence, death, and tragedy.
Nakadai goes big here, playing someone considerably older than he was at the time Ran was made, and doing so convincingly. There’s a theatricality to his performance that’s perfectly in line with the bold colors, grand scale, and shocking – almost over-the-top – violence found throughout the film, and he’s mesmerizing to watch, especially because of how much his character unravels as Ran gets darker. But, honorable mentions should go out to some other actors in Ran, with Shinnosuke Ikehata (as the court fool) and Mieko Harada (as the ruthless and ambitious Lady Kaede) also standing out.
Seven Samurai is about as iconic as action movies get. There’s an argument to be made that it laid the groundwork for how best to pull off a compelling action film on a grand scale, with every minute of its lengthy runtime holding up when watched today. Alongside the compelling story and exciting final act, there are also numerous great performances within Seven Samurai, making it hard to pick a standout.
In the end, it’s probably Toshiro Mifune, though, and part of that is owing to the fact that he plays the most scene-stealing of characters here: Kikuchiyo, who’s a bit of an outcast among the samurai warriors, and kind of a goofball, though he has a surprising amount of heart and courage, in the end. Mifune expertly portrays this multifaceted character, though each of the actors playing the other six samurai is also great, everyone working in tandem to make Seven Samurai one of the best films of all time.
Your changes have been saved
Seven Samurai
Director Akira Kurosawa
Cast Toshiro Mifune , Takashi Shimura
Runtime 207 minutes
1 Takashi Shimura as Kanji Watanabe
'Ikiru' (1952)
Image via Toho
Confirming that the very well-received Rashomon was no fluke, Ikiru was another vital film for Akira Kurosawa during his first decade as a feature film director, and one of his very best efforts that didn’t feature Toshiro Mifune in any capacity. Instead, Ikiru was a chance for Takashi Shimura to shine in a lead role, and though he’s not quite in every scene here, he is undoubtedly phenomenal, truly carrying the movie in more ways than one.
In Ikiru, Shimura plays a widowed bureaucrat who learns he’s likely going to die within months, owing to a terminal illness, and so he sets out trying to actually live his life before he’s gone, as well as endeavoring to perform some kind of act that will continue to be a net good once he’s deceased. Kurosawa’s sensitive direction and Shimura’s moving performance work in tandem to make Ikiru both cathartic and emotionally devastating, especially during its slow-burn yet monumental final act.
Image via Toho
Image via Toho 
Image via Daiei Films 
Image via Toho 
Image via Toho 
Image via Toho 
Image via Shochiku 
Image via Toho 
Image via Toho 
Image via Toho 
English (US) ·