`Samurai' remains sharp-edged drama: AFI's revival of this Japanese classic is tribute to director Akira Kurosawa.(Metropolitan Times)(Arts & Entertainment)(Movies)

0 Comments | Washington Times, The, December, 1998 | by Arnold, Gary

Unable to mount an extensive selection of Toshiro Mifune's movies after his death last Christmas Eve, the American Film Institute Theater compromised with a revival of "Rashomon" in February. The management has arranged to conclude the year with a revival of "Seven Samurai," in tribute to the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, who was 88 when he died in September.

Mr. Mifune and Mr. Kurosawa shared an exceptional professional collaboration: 16 features released between 1948 and 1965. "Rashomon," made in 1950, and "Seven Samurai," made in 1954, probably have left the most enduring, formidable impressions. The former, an incisive and haunting allegory about human weakness and self-deception (exposed in the course of a murder investigation that...