# Toshirô Mifune **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 20, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454 "2006-09-20T18:30:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/1 "2006-09-20T18:30:32Z")
For all I know, maybe I’m the last person to recognize this individual’s quality work as an actor, but finally recognize him I did. Last weekend, I finally saw from start to finish a movie I’d previously only caught parts of, 1968’s **Hell In The Pacific**. Performances by Mr. Mifune and Lee Marvin both were very enjoyable and it’s a compelling, thought-provoking work, one that caused me to reflect back on it several times during the week. Then, last night I watched for the very first time **Yojimbo** , a 1961 Akira Kurosawa film. Near the end, it suddenly struck me that the Japanese actor in both were the same man. A Google search today shows that Toshirô Mifune has in fact worked in dozens of films, although the only other I’ve likely seen was the 1976 classic, **Midway**. I’m embarassed to be so late to the Mifune party. Has it been going on long? When did you get there and what films brought you? Any favorite films, scenes or anecdotes? What must I know about this man? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/2 "2006-09-20T18:40:49Z")
Toshiro Mifune acted in many of legendary director Akira Kurasawa’s films, including the role of **Kikuchiyo** in **Shichi no Samurai/The Seven Samurai** , the role of the Stranger in **Rashomon** , the Warrior in **The Hidden Fortress** , the Loner in **Yojimbo** and many others. Highly important roles all. He appeared in quite a few American movies as well, starring as a Samurai in the American West in the oddball western **Red Sun** and as Toranaga-sama in the TV adaptation of **Shogun** ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/3 "2006-09-20T18:42:54Z")
I think he is more than a bit over the top in Seven Samurai and way too over-dramatic. However, he is quite skillful and I believe he was really a martial artist. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/4 "2006-09-20T18:44:42Z")
Sanjuro: You’re all tough, then? Gambler: What? Kill me if you can! Sanjuro: It’ll hurt. Mifune was fantastic, especially with Kurosawa. He was kind of the De Niro to Kurosawa’s Scorsese. If you liked him in Yojimbo, check out The Seven Samurai and Rashomon. I hear he was equally great as Musashi in Inagaki’s Samurai Trilogy, but I haven’t seen it yet. If you saw Clavell’s “Shogun” series back in the 70’s (80’s?), he played Toranaga. On preview, I’ve been beaten to the punch on all this, but what the hey. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/5 "2006-09-20T19:02:26Z")
Just today I dropped off some photo work at a camera store in Midtown, and the really handsome, middle-aged Asian guy there and I were chatting. As I left, I thought to myself, “He’s really good-looking, kinda like Toshiro Mifune!” How often does _his_ name come up twice in one afternoon? ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/6 "2006-09-20T19:19:50Z")
I highly reccomend the film-noir masterpiece **High and Low**. Mifune’s a shoemaker in 1950’s Japan, and yet he’s as heroic and manly as they come. Hell of a good thriller. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/7 "2006-09-20T19:57:02Z")
[QUOTE=BMalion] I highly reccomend the film-noir masterpiece **High and Low**. Mifune’s a shoemaker in 1950’s Japan, and yet he’s as heroic and manly as they come. Hell of a good thriller. [/QUOTE] Yeah, I saw that one recently, and agree with your description. I love Mifune in his bodyguard character, when he’s tough but not over-the-top. I especially like his little shoulder twitch/arm stretch thing that he does. I agree that he could take the intensity down a few notches for his Kikuchiyo character in _The Seven Samurai_, but if that character had been a bit calmer, we wouldn’t have that scene outside the blazing windmill when he was holding the newly-orphaned baby and wailing that the same thing had happened to him as a child. ::shivering just thinking of the scene:: I’ve seen bits of _The Samurai_ series, and recommend it highly. It’s not in Kurosawa’s style, but Mifune’s transformation from desperate outlaw to controlled, serene samurai is very well done. And the cinematography, sets, and kimonos are unmatched in beauty and color. ---
**Author:** ![Encinitas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Encinitas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Encinitas)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/8 "2006-09-20T20:36:51Z")
**Hell In The Pacific** is a hell of a good movie. “My log!” ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/9 "2006-09-20T20:46:35Z")
_The Seven Samurai_ is on my Top Ten Movies of All Time. Particularly for the speech at the end, where the samurai realizes he and everyone else is caught in the web of other people’s expectations, and the whole notion that the peasants should be grateful to him is nonsense - and there is nothing he can do about it. Typically Japanese, IMO. And brilliant. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/10 "2006-09-20T22:32:24Z")
I looked him up on Wiki last night (because of the Yojimbo airing) and was astonished to learn that he grew up in Manchuria, managed to never join a combat unit in WWII (he was in aerial surveillance photography), and was a lifelong Methodist (his father was a Methodist missionary). Another fun factoid (not in Wiki): Mifune’s samurai characters were the basis for John Belushi’s [samurai deli-counter man](http://bbring.com/collegepop.htm) in those early SNL skits (the first “Samurai Delicatessen” skit aired Dec. 13, 1975). He had him down pretty pat, too. I have no idea if Mifune ever saw any of these skits or what he thought of them. ---
**Author:** ![Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/858c86/32.png) [@Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/11 "2006-09-21T02:38:40Z")
Another fuckalicious modern role was in _The Bad Sleep Well_. Hey, I have my criteria, you have yours! ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/12 "2006-09-21T03:08:23Z")
[QUOTE=Eve] Just today I dropped off some photo work at a camera store in Midtown, and the really handsome, middle-aged Asian guy there and I were chatting. As I left, I thought to myself, “He’s really good-looking, kinda like Toshiro Mifune!” [/QUOTE] Oh hell yes. The man’s smile (rare in many of his films) is utterly charming, too. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/13 "2006-09-21T08:56:09Z")
There’s quite a good Dogma film, which is a bit of a tribute, called Mifune. ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/14 "2006-09-21T13:00:03Z")
**Hell in the Pacific** is an absolutely amazing movie. It was the first time I’d ever seen Mifune, and Lee Marvin also did a great job (and I usually don’t like Lee Marvin). Such subtle, powerful acting, and a brilliant job by both, showing their hostility slowly morph into friendship. And, incidentally, that makes two threads in about 15 minutes where I praise a John Boorman film. Creepy. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/15 "2006-09-21T13:18:57Z")
On the other hand, he also made a pretty good western with a pre-Death Wish Charles Bronson called **Red Sun** , I thought it was fun. [The plot:](http://www.amazon.com/Red-Sun-Terence-Young/dp/B000296G66) > [@](#): > > The Japanese ambassador is travelling through the Wild West by train, when gangsters hold up the train, to rob a gold shipment. They also carry an ancient Japanese sword the embassador was carrying as a present for the US president. The embassador’s bodyguard (Toshiro Mifune) will go after them, with the aid of one of the gang’s leaders betrayed by his pals… ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/16 "2006-09-21T13:40:47Z")
Never heard of the man 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/17 "2006-09-21T14:14:06Z")
_The Hidden Fortress_ is part of my collection at home, & treasured. The mass escape scene, early in the film, is a thrilling piece of pure spectacle. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toshiro-mifune/373454/18 "2006-09-21T15:16:22Z")
**The Scrivener** , I too found several portions of Wiki interesting on his background. I’ll be searching for and no doubt enjoying the films y’all have recommended. Appreciate them all. Thanks!