Rating: 
Summary: 5 Star biography -- 2 Star Look at his films
Review: Kurosawa reaches for great heights with Sam Shepherd narrating the body and Paul Scofield acting as the voice of Kurosawa's autobiography. It's certainly worth watching as a compelling story of a famous man, but it fails as an examination of his work. If it weren't for the films, Kurosawa would hardly be an interesting subject, but the documentary is only interested in certain films important to his overall career. The first half-hour is an interesting but empty tribute to how important he is supposed to be. I find it interesting to hear about Kurosawa's experiences with Hiroshima and his brother's suicide, but that should be a secondary attribute, not the heart of the film. Though decent length is spent on Rashomon and Seven Samurai, the films Hidden Fortress and High and Low aren't even discussed. Many actors and writers from the films are interviewed in current times, and they even return to the locations of the films. It was also interesting to see Clint Eastwood and James Coburn discuss the films and characters that they would later play in western remakes. But I still wanted more. A look at how Kurosawa's early rearing readied him for future art is would have been more worthwhile, had the actual work been discussed for its own merits.
Rating: 
Summary: Great, But Incomplete
Review: My first exposure to a Kurosawa film was "Seven Samurai". I watched it after watching "The magnificent Seven". The thing that piqued my curiosity about Seven Samurai was the "making of" documentary that came with The Magnificent Seven. After watching Seven Samurai (3 times in less than 2 days - it litterally blew me away), I then saw the Magnificent Seven again.So what does all of this have to do with the film Kurosawa? Plenty. Much of what was included in Kurosawa's life was never mentioned in the actual film (a major example of this is that the film itself never mentions that John Ford was a major influence on Kurosawa (and is just casually mentioned in the bonus material). Another example is that the film never mentions Kurosawa's reaction to The Magnificent Seven being made. To get all this information, you must buy The Magnificent Seven DVD (The Special Edition), and watch the "making of" feature, Guns For Hire: The Making Of The Magnificent Seven. Also, why wasn't George Lucas in this project? The movie "The Hidden Fortress" greatly influenced him to make "Star Wars". Actually, there is very little mention of The Hidden Fortress, an ingenious movie in it's own right). It's too bad that the makers of Kurosawa couldn't incorporate Guns For Hire, and the George Lucas interview (The Hidden Fortress) with the film, and the bonus interviews. I probably would have given this documentary 5 stars. Maybe I'm making too much over Seven Samurai, but (as far as I'm concerned) Seven Samurai, and Rashomon were his greatest movies. Still, this documentary (Kurosawa himself cringed at the idea of writing an autobiography) does pay a great deal of tribute to a great, and highly innovative director. Thus it is worth the price of purchase. (How many feature length films do you see on other great directors (Hitchcock, Lang, Ford)? The only one that I can recall is Samuel Fuller (The Typewriter, the Rifle and the Movie Camera), and from watching the still limited releases that he made, he was a great one). Anyway, this is a great bio, but (if you don't have it already) get it with The Magnificent Seven Special Edition DVD. Oh by the way; those japaneese charactors in the menus. If you highlight them, you get comercials of Kurosawa drinking / endorsing Santori Whiskey.
Rating: 
Summary: Great documentary on a great director
Review: PBS did an outstanding job in putting this documentary together. It covers his entire life and career and includes scenes from some of his lesser known and much more difficult to find films. The documentary includes many interview pieces with Kurosawa himself which gives you some added insight into what the man was really like. Also, there are comments from noted Japanese film historian Donald Richie. As a Kurosawa fan watching this on PBS when it aired, the hour and forty five minutes seemed like about half an hour. It is an excellent documentary about perhaps the greatest director of the twentieth century.
Rating:
Summary: Great documentary on a great director
Review: PBS did an outstanding job in putting this documentary together. It covers his entire life and career and includes scenes from some of his lesser known and much more difficult to find films. The documentary includes many interview pieces with Kurosawa himself which gives you some added insight into what the man was really like. Also, there are comments from noted Japanese film historian Donald Richie. As a Kurosawa fan watching this on PBS when it aired, the hour and forty five minutes seemed like about half an hour. It is an excellent documentary about perhaps the greatest director of the twentieth century.
Rating:
Summary: A look into the life and working habit of Kurosawa
Review: There are two parts to this DVD: the main part that tells of the
life story of Kurosawa and highlights of his filmography, and the
bonus materials that consist of interviews with actors,
producers, cinematographer, sound techinicians, and others
involved in making movies with Kurosawa. I find the bonus
interviews much more interesting than the main part of the DVD.
From these interviews you get a picture of how Kurosawa works,
from competitive team writing of scripts to simultaneous filming
with *eight* cameras. It is true that as a fan one would like to
see the films discussed more, but the producer has crammed as
much as they can into a single dvd. To fully document the life
and work of Kurosawa will probably require a 3-or 4-dvd set! What I like best from the DVD: Kurosawa's regret that he hasn't
done anything to resist Japan's war efforts, the frank discussion
of his suicide attempt, the discussions of his work ethics and
methods, his failed collaboration with Hollywood on ``Tora! Tora!
Tora!'', and the demonstration of the Iaido sword drawing
technique! What I wish they have covered better: the break
between Kurosawa and Mifune after Red Beard, and more
illustrations from the films when interviewees discuss various
aspects of the films. One film that is strangely not mentioned at all in the whole DVD
is the Hidden Fortress. Interestingly, in his interview included
at the end of the Hidden Fortress Criterion Collection DVD,
George Lucas denies Hidden Fortress' influence on Star Wars. He
came across as rather annoyed by the question, actually. As for
the Seven Samurai, Michael Lesk's running commentary in the
Criterion Collection discusses in depth Kurosawa's directing
techniques. The present DVD also gives some more ``making of''
information on Seven Samurai. Kurosawa and Seven Samurai are
mentioned in perhaps two sentences in the ``making of'' special
feature of the Magnificient Seven's DVD.
Rating:
Summary: A selective analysis of Kurasawa, amazing none-the-less.
Review: This recent PBS documentary gives a great insight into the director's life; in particular his childhood, and how many of these early experiences were the stimulus that drove his prodigious career.
As well as a chronological examination of his films, "KURASAWA" contains numerous interviews with the director drawn from various sources and eras, and voice-overs quoting Kurasawa's 1983 memoir "Something like an Autobiography" are sprinkled throughout. As the film reaches "RASHOMON" (the first Kurasawa film embraced by the international community), the documentary branches out to include interviews with Clint Eastwood and James Coburn, who discuss the impact of the director's work on Hollywood.
Surprisingly, the film does gloss over quite a few of his works: "Nora Inu/Stray Dog", "Kakushi Toride N San Akunin/The Hidden Fortress", "Tsubaki Sanjuro" and "Tengoku To Jigoku/High and Low" are just a few of the films that fail to even rate a mention, although they're widely acclaimed and now available in the west on DVD. This is a minor quibble, however; the documentary makes no claim to comprehensively cover each Kurasawa film, and even without discussion of these other films the program goes for over 3 hours and still keeps a viewer engrossed.
The extra features included on the DVD proved to be unexpectedly interesting. With over 90 minutes of bonus interviews, one might expect dry, boring footage of talking heads, but this is not the case. The director's colleagues discuss the human side of Kurasawa, the effort he put into each project, and offer details on the writing, editing and visualisation process of his works.
This disc is a must for any Kurasawa fan. With knowledge of the director's childhood, his pioneering techniques and his influence on later generations, you can't help but immediately want to revisit his works. Finally, the easter-eggs are very amusing, and you'll be surprised at just how many of them are sprinkled throughout the menus.
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