VIZ Cinema in the New People Building on Post is playing host to an Akira Kurosawa / Toshiro Mifune film fest these days.
All the deets here and after the jump:
“Seven Films Playing Thru January 6th At The Bay Area Theatre Showcase Iconic Director Akira Kurosawa And Actor Toshiro Mifune
San Francisco, CA, December 20, 2010 – VIZ Cinema, the nation’s only movie theatre dedicated to Japanese film, concludes 2010 with Mifune x Kurosawa, a special new festival celebrating the work of iconic director Akira Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune beginning Saturday, December 18th and running until Thursday, January 6th.
Escape holiday doldrums with seven films including Red Beard, The Idiot, The Lower Depths, High And Low, Stray Dog, Drunken Angel, and the classic action masterpiece, Seven Samurai, which will be presented with a New Year’s reception party on January 2nd. Tickets to all screenings are $10.00 each; screening times and more details are available at:www.vizcinema.com.
Mifune x Kurosawa : A Beautiful Man
Toshiro Mifune graced Japanese cinema with his good looks, fierceness, and charisma. VIZ Cinema brings you Akira Kurosawa’s films featuring Mifune at his finest moments.
(1965, 185 minutes, 35mm, English Subtitles) 12/18 (Sat) @ 2:45pm
12/20 (Mon) @ 7:15pm
12/21 (Tue) @ 3:00pm
12/23 (Thu) @ 7:15pm
12/26 (Sun) @ 1:45pm
Red Beard (Akahige) chronicles the tumultuous relationship between an arrogant young doctor and a compassionate clinic director. Toshiro Mifune, in his last role for Kurosawa, gives a powerhouse performance as the dignified yet empathic director who guides his pupil to maturity.
Tickets $10
(1951, 166 minutes, 35mm, English Subtitles)12/18 (Sat) @ 7:15pm
12/19 (Sun) @ 6:00pm
12/20 (Mon) @ 3:00pm
12/22 (Wed) @ 7:15pm
12/23 (Thu) @ 3:00pm
The Idiot, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s nineteenth-century masterpiece about a wayward, pure soul’s reintegration into society—updated by Kurosawa to capture Japan’s postwar aimlessness—was a victim of studio interference and, finally, public indifference.
Tickets $10
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(1957, 125 minutes, 35mm, English Subtitles)12/19 (Sun) @ 2:45pm
12/21 (Tue) @ 7:15pm
12/22 (Wed) @ 4:00pm
12/26 (Sun) @ 6:00pm
12/27 (Mon) @ 4:00pm
Mifune and Kurosawa transform Maxim Gorky’s classic proletariat play The Lower Depths in their own way firmly situated in the postwar world. Remaining faithful to the original with its focus on the conflict between illusion and reality, their film making styles converge to create unique masterpieces.
Tickets $10
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(1963, 143min, 35mm, English Subtitles)12/27 (Mon) @ 7:15pm
12/28 (Tue) @ 3:30pm
12/30 (Thu) @ 7:15pm
1/3 (Mon) @ 3:30pm
1/6 (Thu) @ 3:30pm
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential High and Low, a compelling race-against-time thriller and a penetrating portrait of contemporary Japanese society.
Tickets $10
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(1949, 122min, 35mm, English Subtitles)12/28 (Tue) @ 7:15pm
12/29 (Wed) @ 4:00pm
1/4 (Tue) @ 7:15pm
1/5 (Wed) @ 4:00pm
1/6 (Thu) @ 7:15pm
When a pickpocket steals a rookie detective’s gun on a hot crowded bus, the cop goes undercover in a desperate attempt to right the wrong. Kurosawa’s thrilling noir probes the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.
Tickets $10
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(1948, 98min, 35mm, English Subtitles)12/29 (Wed) @ 7:15pm
12/30 (Thu) @ 4:30pm
1/3 (Mon) @ 7:15pm
1/4 (Tue) @ 4:30pm
1/5 (Wed) @ 7:15pm
In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura’s jaded physician.
Tickets $10
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(1954, 207 minutes, 35mm, English Language)NEW YEAR’S SPECIAL SCREENING with RECEPTION!
1/2 (Sun) @ 1:30pm
Kick-off 2011 with one of the most thrilling movie epics of all time, Seven Samurai ! This three-hour ride featuring Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire eponymous warriors to protect them from the invading bandits.
Tickets $10
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