Author Spotlight

Stephen Prince

Stephen Prince, a professor of film at Virginia Tech, is the author of numerous books, including The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa and the newly released A Dream of Resistance: The Cinema of Kobayashi Masaki.

7 Results
Mightier Than the Sword: Shinobu Hashimoto at 100

Can screenwriters change the course of film history? The work of key Kurosawa collaborator Shinobu Hashimoto proves they can.

By Stephen Prince

Throne of Blood: Shakespeare Transposed
Critics commonly describe Throne of Blood (1957) as Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of Macbeth. While this description is certainly not untrue, the film is much more than a direct cinematic translation of a literary text. Kurosawa’s movie is a brilli…

By Stephen Prince

Gate of Hell: A Colorful History

Teinosuke Kinugasa’s landmark color film is a visual feast that has finally been vibrantly restored.

By Stephen Prince

The Rashomon Effect
When Akira Kurosawa made Rashomon (1950), he was a forty-year-old director working near the beginning of a career that would last fifty years, produce some of the greatest films ever made, and exert a tremendous and lasting influence on filmmaking th…

By Stephen Prince

The Samurai Trilogy: Musashi Mifune

Hiroshi Inagaki’s action epic is as responsible for creating Toshiro Mifune’s legendary cinematic persona as the films of Kurosawa.

By Stephen Prince

Eclipse Series 23: The First Films of Akira Kurosawa
Sanshiro Sugata: A Career Blooms Moviegoers the world over know Akira Kurosawa for Rashomon (1950) and the international classics that followed—Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, High and Low. The filmmaker’s dazzling technique made …

By Stephen Prince

Dodes’ka-den: True Colors

Akira Kurosawa made Dodes’ka-den (1970) during the most crisis-laden period of his career. He had just spent two years embroiled in an ill-fated venture with the Hollywood studio Twentieth Century Fox to direct the Japanese segments of the World Wa

By Stephen Prince