"Seven Samurai goes without saying. But Stray Dog is the best Japanese film noir I know, with two powerhouse stars: Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune."

"My second exposure to Kurosawa (I saw Ran in the theaters and was way too young to appreciate it). My favorite performance by Toshiro Mifune and my favorite death-by-1,000-arrows sequence. And one of the first DVDs I ever bought."

"A meditation on the nature of reality by Akira Kurosawa, one of greatest of all Japanese films, with magnificent performances by Toshiro Mifune. Is there such a thing as “objective reality”? Or, as Kurosawa suggests, is it all in the eye of the beholder?"

"Only Bugs Bunny rivals the Man with No Name trickster/puppeteer that Toshiro Mifune graced us with here. This might be the perfect popcorn movie. The music alone pops the clutch of this joyride, and a joyride it is: this car’s been stolen more than once, and with good reason."

"Deciding which Akira Kurosawa film to choose for this list was extremely difficult, as he made so many tremendous films. Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and Yojimbo are all amazing, but I love this version of Macbeth. During the final scene, Kurosawa had trained archers fire real arrows at Toshiro Mifune. Brilliant."

"This double bill gives an excellent chance to compare the acting of Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune. Neither is anything but perfect. It is a mystery how Kurosawa, who always refused to make a film without a social statement, manages at the same time to be one of the most entertaining of all filmmakers."

"This double bill gives an excellent chance to compare the acting of Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune. Neither is anything but perfect. It is a mystery how Kurosawa, who always refused to make a film without a social statement, manages at the same time to be one of the most entertaining of all filmmakers."

"Akira Kurosawa made films covered in rich tapestries of Japanese history and charged with terrible violence and drama. Yet here, the contemporary and confined world of a rich industrialist (Toshiro Mifune) who is faced with an overwhelming decision is spare, cold, and objective in the extreme. Hideo Oguni, who worked on seven Kurosawa films, including Seven Samurai, wrote the screenplay based on an Ed McBain novel. Mifune, once again, shows why he is the Japanese Marlon Brando, Edward G. Robinson, and Gregory Peck rolled into one."

"One of the greatest urban crime films ever made. The first hour takes place in an industrialist’s living room, with huge picture windows that look over the city without seeing it, yet Kurosawa’s camera work is so deft and inventive you never feel the constriction—only pummeling suspense and a moral quandary. Toshiro Mifune plays coat-and-tie decency as well as he does his wild men, and Kurosawa descends into the lower depths with blinding clarity."

"I love Kurosawa’s crime movies. The first half of High and Low is so well told, paced, acted, and shot—and it’s all in one room! Then you get into this fascinating police procedural where Toshiro Mifune and his family vanish and the cops take over. I mean, this movie has the “guy unloading crates while being questioned by the cops” scene that is in every Law and Order episode. Kurosawa’s influence is always being felt!"