{"id":791099,"date":"2026-07-29T10:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T10:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/791099\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T10:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T10:11:11","slug":"japanese-horror-director-kiyoshi-kurosawa-makes-his-first-samurai-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/791099\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese horror director Kiyoshi Kurosawa makes his first samurai film"},"content":{"rendered":"

TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the Japanese director known as \u201cthe master of horror,\u201d was a bit nervous about how viewers might react to his first samurai film<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He needn\u2019t have worried.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Samurai and the Prisoner,\u201d opening in New York and Los Angeles on July 31, followed by a rollout in major U.S. cities through August, received an enthusiastic response when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival<\/a> in May.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s turning out to be Kurosawa\u2019s most popular film to date, if its reception in Japan<\/a>, where it opened earlier this year, is any indication.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s saying a lot for a director who counts to his credit dozens of respected works, including the 2020 Venice Film Festival<\/a> \u2019s Silver Lion-winning \u201cWife of a Spy.\u201d His 2008 \u201cTokyo Sonata,\u201d about heartbreaking family conflict, won Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes. <\/p>\n

\u201cFilmmaking remains a mystery for me,\u201d Kurosawa said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a complex undertaking that requires bringing together the real world, or what\u2019s being filmed, and what\u2019s not real, the story that must be depicted, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand it. And that\u2019s why I keep making films,\u201d he told The Associated Press in a recent online interview from New York. <\/p>\n

Why can\u2019t I do what Yasujiro Ozu did? Why can\u2019t I do what Alfred Hitchcock<\/a> did? Those are the questions he keeps asking himself, he said. <\/p>\n

Kurosawa\u2019s past films, like his 1997 \u201cCure,\u201d starring Koji Yakusho<\/a> playing a detective chasing a serial killer, tend to be driven by a frightening creepiness that unfolds in a mundane world.<\/p>\n

But the samurai genre already presupposes a fictitious otherworldly place, and everyday normalcy simply doesn\u2019t exist there, Kurosawa said. <\/p>\n

The story of \u201cThe Samurai and the Prisoner\u201d centers around a rivalry between warlords, those familiar Shakespearean plot twists that characterize samurai films. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is, first of all, power. A feudalistic society is built on a hierarchical relationship of those at the top and those at the bottom. Then there\u2019s betrayal,\u201d said Kurosawa.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople try to grab power, and in so doing get thrown into confusion. That exists in any society, historically and perhaps even today. And so this is also about what\u2019s eternal.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kurosawa acknowledged he didn\u2019t know what to expect in tackling a samurai movie, starting with the basics like how to direct the actors. Unlike modern dramas, he felt there were no predefined parameters on how actors\u2019 lines should be delivered, for instance. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s common wisdom that a director doing something new ends up disappointing fans, who tend to want more of the same. Adding to the challenge was the fact that, these days, even many Japanese find the old-style samurai genre alien as much as does the Westerner.<\/p>\n

But everything fell in place, once things got started. It happened naturally. The set, costumes, props, wigs and makeup all worked together to transport the actors to that otherworldly spot. He was lucky to be able to shoot in old temples and castles in Kyoto.<\/p>\n

Kurosawa kept his trademark long shots and almost claustrophobic dialogue scenes, in which nothing appears to be happening but chills shoot up the viewers\u2019 spine in anticipation of what unimaginably horrific thing might happen next.<\/p>\n

His latest has all the look of an orthodox samurai film, known here as \u201cjidaigeki,\u201d staying true to its legacy of depicting the horrors and pathos of war.<\/p>\n

There are even wide shots of warriors in armor lined up on a hilltop, evocative of \u201cRan\u201d and \u201cKagemusha\u201d by Akira Kurosawa, who is not related to Kiyoshi Kurosawa<\/p>\n

Making \u201cThe Samurai and the Prisoner\u201d was so fun, Kurosawa would like to make another samurai film, this time with more spectacular sword-fighting scenes a la \u201cZatoichi,\u201d a popular film series of the 1960s and 1970s about a heroic blind swordsman.<\/p>\n

He also wants to tackle new genres, perhaps a musical. And he promised to keep making horror films, if people aren\u2019t bored with his style of having nothing happen for what feels like forever.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s worried that may appear dated.<\/p>\n

The works popular these days, both in Japan and elsewhere, have one explosive thing happening after another, to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.<\/p>\n

\u201cA scary thing generally doesn\u2019t happen every five minutes in my films,\u201d Kurosawa said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if that\u2019s OK, then I\u2019d like to make my film.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https:\/\/www.threads.com\/@yurikageyama<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the Japanese director known as \u201cthe master of horror,\u201d was a bit nervous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[333048,33919,1204,32176,88,793,3471,312682,336288,3031,206,2005,965,55978],"class_list":["post-791099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-akira-kurosawa","tag-alfred-hitchcock","tag-asia-pacific","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-entertainment","tag-general-news","tag-japan","tag-kiyoshi-kurosawa","tag-koji-yakusho","tag-los-angeles","tag-movies","tag-new-york","tag-world-news","tag-yuri-kageyama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}