Akira Kurosawa

The bunraku and kabuki play Double Suicide in Amijima was adapted into a film titled Double Suicide in 1969. The film is a very interesting and artistic mix of modern film technique and illusions to the bunraku genre of traditional Japanese theater. Throughout the film, darkly-clothed stagehands and puppeteers, or kuroko, can be seen with their faces covered. In bunraku, kuroko cover their faces to not distract the audience while maneuvering the puppets; however, the lead puppeteer with decades…

Red Beard In the movie “Red Beard” we are interdicted to Dr. Noboru Yasumoto. A young doctor whom refused to become an intern for Dr. Kyojo Niide “Red Beard”. Having trained in Dutch medicinal training, Yasumoto believed he doesn’t belong to an old and poor clinic. But, through the film, he begins to realize what it means to be a doctor and the flaws that the Japanese government had for the people in Koishikawa. The film shows the social injustice the people of Koishikawa faced in everyday life…

This week’s myth was on research showing that dreams have symbolic meaning. This psychological belief goes all the way back to Freud, who stated that dream interpretation was not universal, even though he treated it like it was. I was most surprised to learn that this belief actually stems from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. I knew it wasn’t a new belief, but I did not know that belief was over a hundred years old. This myth has persisted because we believe in a subconscious self, and we…

As I woke up from a night of excellent sleep, I turned over in my bed to see a stunning commercial on the television. Colors were flashing red, blue, and about every other color so I knew it must be something important. I rubbed my eyes so I could see the television more clearly and I read off the screen “wanted: 5 people between the ages of 14 and 18 to participate in a once in a lifetime opportunity… A round trip to Mars is being given away to 3 lucky winners, visit www.trip2mars.com. After…

in itself” directly relating to the plot of King Lear. Being as it may, play writers have attempted to create their own film adaptations based on King Lear. While the film adaptations of Shakespeare’s King Lear created by Olivier, J.E. Jones and Kurosawa reflect on the structure and elements of tragedy, each film portrays an element of tragedy the best. Olivier best expresses pathos through the downfall and disrespect that Lear…

I believe that Yojimbo is one of the most ideal examples of a film that successfully overcame the different cultural borders because of how the plot embodies universal themes that were very much relatable and applicable to audiences regardless of which cultural society they belonged to. These reoccurring themes may somewhat be a depiction of or a response to what a certain society was currently experiencing during that time. The theme of ‘old versus the new’ was an underlying theme that was…

In this Woodblock portrait, Hokusai has combined the faces of two demons. One demon is named Hannya, and the second is Yamanba. Hannya’s face comes from a mask used in Noh theatre and Japanese plays. The Hannya mask is supposed to portray souls of women who have become demons due to obsessive jealousy. The demon is said to be dangerous, but also tormented, which shows the complexity of human emotions. The second demon, Yamanba, is believed to eat infants brought to the mountains. In this…

Mysterious and yet charming with the signature image of wispy beard, all-black clothes, ear-to-ear grin, and thick grey hair increasingly peeking out beneath a black hat, is the infamous Yohji Yamamoto, also known as the karasuzoku. Yamamoto’s birth might be the emerging of the Y’s labels. He was born in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo in 1943, to a seamstress mother - a war widow. He had no memories of his father. His father was one of the millions of men who was forced to fight during the World…

Magic In Our Hearts It still seems like it was just yesterday. The smell of the roses, the cloud of hairspray covering my home from left to right. People running around trying to get ready. Somehow everything seemed to be passing by so slow for me. I felt such calmness and peace going through me. I looked down and could see I was only half ready, still wearing my blue basketball shorts and Pink Floyd t-shirt. Make up was already done and hair was almost done just needed a few…

Somehow I find pure joy in watching two men or women display their superior ass kicking skills on one another. So much so that I endure movies with painfully corny and cliché story lines, all to watch Keanu Reeves in a well tailored suit show off his impressive mixed martial art abilities and military grade handling of assault rifles (John Wick). What the movie lacks in its plot more than graciously substitutes in for its incredibly stylish persona of John Wick, as well as a more than healthy…