In Praise of Toshiro Mifune, the last samurai
Toshiro Mifune is a film icon. Ahead of Glasgow Film Festival's retrospective celebrating this ‘great warrior figure of world cinema’, and Steven Okazaki’s documentary Mifune: The Last Samurai, we take a look at what made Mifune so special
The hero is outnumbered. A circle of sneering enemies are slowly drawing in, convinced they’ve got the drop on him. He remains unruffled, practically unresponsive. They move closer, snarling, spitting threats and insults. Quietly, calmly, he offers them the chance to leave. They can’t believe their ears. They howl with laughter and wonder if this guy isn’t crazy. His tone is all deadpan, just the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he unlocks his jaw just enough to let one rough shard of sarcasm fly. It’s blood to the sharks. The audacity of this little punks sends them into a full on feeding frenzy. They don’t care whether he’s dumb or crazy anymore, and all at once they hurl themselves onto him, spit flying, wide-eyed, ready to tear him limb from limb.
A few moments later, he’s coolly stepping over the bodies piled on the floor, walking out the door and strolling off into the night.
This hero has been re-incarnated throughout the cinematic universe time and time again: the gunslinger of the Wild West, the gumshoe of the big bad city, the killer with a code. We all know him, we’ve seen him kicking ass and taking names all across the world in every era, speaking different languages and wearing different clothes but always defined by that same gnarled valour, that hard-edged heroism. He’s the good guy with the bad attitude, the one who saves your life then tells you to go fuck yourself while he lights another cigarette and orders another beer. He’s been known by many names – and often by no name at all – but in the beginning, this hero was Toshiro Mifune.
Taking the archetype of the clean-living, well-mannered samurai and rudely smashing it to pieces, Mifune created a newer, more complex type of protagonist. His roving warrior was a roughed up, red-blooded loner, immovably devoted to his own moral rules and completely uninterested in anyone else’s. He could get drunk and lose his temper, piss off everyone in sight and still save the day. Mifune's new kind of hero stormed into the centre of the audience’s imagination and demanded its full attention. Some 50 years later, he still holds it.
It’s often the new work on show that grabs the headlines at film festivals – the up-and-coming directors, breakthrough actors and the master filmmakers’ latest offerings – and that’s to be expected, but they also offer a chance to get people in a room with older movies that risk getting lost in the content-blitz of the digital era. Narrated by Keanu Reeves, documentary Mifune: The Last Samurai aims to shine a spotlight back upon the man, bringing his talents to a new audience while reminding the old one why they loved him in the first place. His work with Akira Kurosawa is the stuff of cinematic legend and only a fraction of Mifune’s own legacy, accounting for 16 films of the some 160 plus which form one of the most impressive filmographies of his or any era.
Just like Hemingway could tell a story in six words, Mifune could evoke whole mountains of emotion in the smallest gestures. An actor of unrivalled physicality, each movement he made spilled a whole sentence out onto the screen, making his characters much more than just slick anti-heroes with a talent for grim one-liners.
The raw emotional power of his performances found their perfect counterpart in Kurosawa’s intricate visions, giving birth to modern masterpieces like Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Throne of Blood, which would in turn inspire a generation of Hollywood filmmakers to come. Simply put, cinema has never been the same since Mifune’s swaggering samurai came to town.
Mifune: The Last Samurai season at GFF
Mifune: The Last Samurai, 16 & 24 Feb, GFT
Stray Dog, 17 Feb, GFT
Rashomon, 20 Feb, GFT
Seven Samurai, 21 Feb, GFT
Yojimbo, 22 Feb, GFT
Sanjuro, 23 Feb, GFT
Read more about Glasgow Film Festival in The CineSkinny – in print at Glasgow Film Festival venues and online at theskinny.co.uk/film/cineskinny