Found inside a shining stalk of bamboo by an old bamboo cutter and his wife, a tiny girl grows rapidly into an exquisite young lady. The mysterious young princess enthralls…

Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on “Sanjuro” (1962).

With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare’s King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa’s late-life masterpiece, a profound…

Set in the icy wilderness of Hokkaido during the early days of the Meiji era, where the brutal warden of Kabato Prison terrorizes convicts sentenced to forced labor to build…

Onimasa is the egocentric boss of a small yakuza clan on Shikoku Island, whose criminal duties conflict with his self-image as a chivalrous samurai. His struggles with his boss, the…

A peasant woman is banished from her village and makes a deal with the devil to gain magical powers.

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the…