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 As the first blog entry got exhausted. My second book |
| Evolution of Love Part 2 |
| April 1, 1920. Qingdao, China. A boy was born in Japanese-occupied territory, far from the country whose cinematic history he would change forever. His name was Toshiro Mifune. His parents were Japanese Methodist missionaries. His father ran a photography business. Young Toshiro grew up in Dalian, Manchuria, working in his father's photo studio, learning to frame shots, to capture light, to see the world through a lens. He spoke Japanese and Mandarin. He dreamed of becoming a photographer like his father. He would never set foot in Japan until he was 21 years old. At age 20, because he was a Japanese citizen, Mifune was automatically drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army Aviation division. World War II was raging. He served in the Aerial Photography Unit—taking reconnaissance photos from the sky, documenting enemy terrain. Near the war's end, he was stationed with a special attack unit responsible for suicide missions. His job was to take "commemorative" portraits of young pilots before they flew to their deaths. He would treat them to dinner. Offer parting advice. "Don't yell 'Long live the emperor,'" he told them. "Go ahead and cry out for your mother. There's no shame in it." He watched hundreds of young men fly away and never return. Years later, when asked about his wartime service, Mifune would say only: "These big laborer's hands of mine are my unwanted souvenir of that time." He hated the war. Called it a "senseless slaughter." It changed him forever. In 1947, at age 27, Mifune moved to Tokyo. He was a veteran with no connections, no family in Japan, and no clear path forward. But he had photography skills. He applied for an assistant cameraman position at Toho Studios—the largest film production company in Japan. What happened next changed cinema history. By accident—by pure, random chance—Mifune's application was sent to the wrong department. Instead of the photography division, it went to the acting auditions. Toho was conducting a massive "New Faces" talent search. Hundreds of aspiring actors lined up to audition. Mifune didn't want to be there. He didn't want to be an actor. But he was told to audition anyway. The judges gave him an acting exercise: Show us anger. Mifune drew from his wartime experiences—the rage, the injustice, the senseless death he'd witnessed. He exploded. Working on an adjoining set was director Akira Kurosawa—already a rising star with six films to his name. Kurosawa wasn't planning to attend the auditions. But actress Hideko Takamine insisted he come. "There's one actor you have to see," she said. Kurosawa reluctantly walked into the audition room. Years later, he would write about what he saw: "A young man reeling around the room in a violent frenzy... it was as frightening as watching a wounded beast trying to break loose. I was transfixed." When Mifune finished, exhausted, he sat down and glared at the judges with an ominous stare. He lost the competition. But Kurosawa was mesmerized. "I am a person rarely impressed by actors," Kurosawa later said. "But in the case of Mifune I was completely overwhelmed." He cast Mifune immediately in his next film: Drunken Angel (1948). Mifune was supposed to play a small supporting role as a young gangster. But once filming began, Kurosawa realized he'd found something extraordinary. "Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world," Kurosawa wrote. "It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three." Over the next 17 years, they would make 16 films together. They became one of cinema's greatest actor-director partnerships—like De Niro and Scorsese, like Wayne and Ford. But more intense. More revolutionary. In 1950, they made Rashomon. Mifune played a wild bandit in a story about truth, perspective, and the unknowability of reality. The film flopped in Japan. Critics didn't understand it. Then it was submitted to the Venice Film Festival—without Kurosawa or Mifune even knowing. It won the Golden Lion. It introduced Japanese cinema to the world. "We had no idea it had been submitted to Venice," Mifune later said. "Kurosawa didn't go to the festival, neither did I. There was a small article in a Japanese newspaper, that was all." But suddenly, the world was watching. In 1954, they made Seven Samurai. Originally titled Six Samurai, Kurosawa realized during scriptwriting that "six sober samurai were a bore—they needed a character that was more off-the-wall." He recast Mifune as Kikuchiyo—a wild, temperamental rogue who lies about being a samurai but proves his worth. To prepare, Mifune studied footage of lions in the wild. His performance was feral, explosive, heartbreaking. Seven Samurai became one of the most influential films ever made—inspiring The Magnificent Seven, influencing countless westerns, reshaping global cinema. Mifune revolutionized the samurai archetype. Before him, samurai on screen were genteel, clean-cut, noble. Mifune played them rough, coarse, gruff—but with unexpected tenderness. Practical wisdom. Raw humanity. In Throne of Blood (1957), he transformed Macbeth into a Japanese warlord consumed by ambition. In Yojimbo (1961), he played a wandering ronin with no name—a character so iconic that Sergio Leone copied it for Clint Eastwood's "Man With No Name" in the spaghetti westerns. George Lucas was inspired by The Hidden Fortress when creating Star Wars. Quentin Tarantino borrowed from the Samurai Trilogy for Kill Bill. Mifune's influence rippled through cinema like shockwaves. He appeared in over 170 films. He worked constantly. Outside of Kurosawa's films, he starred in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy as legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. He moved to Hollywood productions: Grand Prix (1966), Hell in the Pacific (1968), Midway (1976), Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979). He won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at Venice twice—for Yojimbo (1961) and Red Beard (1965). He was the only actor ever to win it twice. But Red Beard would change everything. Filming began in December 1963. It didn't wrap until two years later. Kurosawa was a perfectionist. Sets were painstakingly authentic. Materials were aged for months. Bedding was slept in for half a year before filming. Mifune was required to grow a real beard and keep it for two years. He couldn't take any other roles during filming. He was losing money. His newly founded production company was going into debt. The collaboration that had created magic for 17 years began to fracture. After Red Beard, Mifune and Kurosawa never worked together again. They met occasionally. They spoke with respect in public. But the rift never fully healed. Mifune continued working prolifically. He founded Mifune Productions. He made samurai films. He took international roles. In 1980, at age 60, he starred in the American TV miniseries Shogun as Lord Toranaga. It introduced him to a new generation of Western audiences. But his body was wearing down. In 1986, he received the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon from the Japanese government. In 1993, he received the Order of the Sacred Treasure. By the mid-1990s, he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He withdrew from public life. On December 24, 1997—Christmas Eve—Toshiro Mifune died in a hospital in Mitaka, Tokyo. He was 77 years old. The cause was multiple organ failure. His heart, his lungs—everything was shutting down. "He had poured every last ounce of physical and emotional energy into his life and work," one biographer wrote, "until there was nothing left." Nine months later, on September 6, 1998, Akira Kurosawa died of a stroke at age 88. In less than a year, Japanese cinema had lost its two greatest figures. On November 14, 2016—19 years after Mifune's death—he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His grandson accepted it on his behalf. He was only the fourth Japanese motion picture celebrity to receive that honor. Today, when film students study acting, they study Mifune. When directors talk about screen presence, they reference Mifune. When actors prepare for intense roles, they watch Mifune. His influence is everywhere: Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name. Bruce Lee's intensity. The entire samurai genre. Star Wars. Kill Bill. Every gruff antihero who hides nobility beneath rough edges. Of Kurosawa, Mifune once said: "I have never as an actor done anything that I am proud of other than with him." But the world is proud of Mifune. The boy born in China who never saw Japan until adulthood. The war veteran who took portraits of doomed pilots. The man who applied for a cameraman job and walked into the wrong room. The "wounded beast" who became cinema's greatest samurai. The actor who needed only three feet of film when others needed ten. He changed how the world saw Japanese cinema. He changed how the world saw samurai. He changed what it meant to be powerful on screen—not through polish, but through raw, untamed humanity. Toshiro Mifune proved that the greatest performances come not from technique, but from truth. From channeling real pain, real rage, real life into art. From refusing to be anything other than completely, ferociously yourself. He never wanted to be an actor. But cinema needed him to be. And because he walked into the wrong room that day in 1947, the world gained one of its greatest artists. |
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