04-18-2020, 08:16 AM
Another Toshirô Mifune/Takashi Shimura vehicle, not directed by Kurosawa, but co-scripted by him. It is the oldest movie in criterion's current Mifune retrospective.
Mifune and Shimura are part of a robber gang heading into the snowy mountains to hide out, with the law in hot pursuit. They clash ever more over moral and ethical issues as they interact with each other and others and the environment.
Not a lot of surprises here, but Mifune's intensity and charisma are on full display, with Shimura playing perfectly against him.
When Kurosawa first used Mifune in Drunken Angel a year later, it was based on seeing Mifune in all his intensity on another set, or in the rushes from some-such, and this might have been that movie.
On a side note, Taniguchi also directed International Secret Police: Key of Keys (1965), famously re-dubbed and re-released as What's Up, Tiger Lily? by Woody Allen. And no, I have not seen this. (Did I hear recently that it hasn't aged well?)
Mifune and Shimura are part of a robber gang heading into the snowy mountains to hide out, with the law in hot pursuit. They clash ever more over moral and ethical issues as they interact with each other and others and the environment.
Not a lot of surprises here, but Mifune's intensity and charisma are on full display, with Shimura playing perfectly against him.
When Kurosawa first used Mifune in Drunken Angel a year later, it was based on seeing Mifune in all his intensity on another set, or in the rushes from some-such, and this might have been that movie.
On a side note, Taniguchi also directed International Secret Police: Key of Keys (1965), famously re-dubbed and re-released as What's Up, Tiger Lily? by Woody Allen. And no, I have not seen this. (Did I hear recently that it hasn't aged well?)
I'm nobody's pony.
