Kurosawa Film Festival

Luna Palace Cinemas & Madman are proud to present this retrospective of the finest films made by Akira Kurosawa, which have been restored by Toho Studios and remastered from original scans

Hugely influential, Kurosawa inspired other filmmaking luminaries including John Ford, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Hayao Miyazaki and Martin Scorsese. In the ’50s Kurosawa opened up the eyes of the Western world to Japanese cinema.

Renowned film critic David Stratton recalled, “His films were not only accessible, they were marvellously executed.” For the samurai epics Seven Samurai (1954), The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962) he drew upon American westerns, in turn influencing international movies including The Magnificent Seven, A Fistful of Dollars and Star Wars.

Rashomon is a riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth through contradictory interpretations - still wildly influential on film storytelling. Throne of Blood (1955) and Ran (1985) are Kurosawa’s takes on Shakespeare’s Macbeth and King Lear. Both offer haunting, disturbing and magical visions of a world in chaos. Modern-day dramas Red Beard (1965), Ikiru (1952) - remade recently as Living with Bill Nighy, and the tense kidnapping drama High and Low (1963) being remade by Spike Lee with Denzel Washington - round out the selection.