Postwar Kurosawa: Eclipse Series (Criterion) (DVD)

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In order to provide more timely coverage, the following review includes only summary information and pictorial reviews of the five films included in the "Post War Kurosawa" boxed set, the seventh release in the Eclipse series from Criterion.

In 2007, Criterion launched the Eclipse series with the intention of making a broader selection of films by familiar (and sometimes less familiar) auteurs available to the DVD viewing public. The Eclipse series features quality transfers, but no extras. Series Seven from Eclipse is the "Postwar Kurosawa" boxed set which includes five of the Japanese master´s films released from 1946 to 1955.

The set includes "No Regrets for Our Youth" (1946), "One Wonderful Sunday" (1947), "Scandal" (1950), "The Idiot" (1951), and "I Live in Fear" (1955). Obviously, this does not cover every Kurosawa release from the 10-year post-war period, which also produced three of his best-know works: "Rashomon" (1950), "Ikiru" (1952), and "The Seven Samurai" (1954). Talk about one hell of a run. However, all of these films as well as several other Kurosawa titles ("Drunken Angel," "Stray Dog," etc.) have already been released, almost all by Criterion. This set fills in the gaps and now makes every Kurosawa film from this period available on Region 1 DVD.

The films highlight the diversity of Kurosawa´s work which goes beyond his yakuza/samurai films and literary adaptations his version of Dostoevsky´s "The Idiot" is one of the highlights of the collection. Summaries of each film (taken from the DVD packaging) follow:

"No Regrets for Our Youth" (1946, 110 min.)

In Kurosawa´s first film after the end of WW2, future beloved Ozu regular Setsuko Hara gives an astonishing performance as Yukie, the only female protagonist in Kurosawa´s body of work and one of his strongest heroes. Transforming herself from genteel bourgeois daughter to independent social activist, Yukie traverses a tumultuous decade in Japanese history.

"One Wonderful Sunday" (1947, 109 min.)

This affectionate paean to young love is also a frank examination by Akira Kurosawa of the harsh realities of postwar Japan. During a Sunday trip into war-ravaged Tokyo, Yuzo (Isao Numazaki) and Masako (Chieko Nakakita) look for work and lodging, as well as affordable entertainments to pass the time. Reminiscent of Frank Capra´s social-realist comedies and echoing contemporaneous Italian neorealism, "One Wonderful Sunday" touchingly offers a sliver of hope in dark times.

"Scandal" (1950, 105 min.)

A handsome, suave Toshiro Mifune lights up the screen as painter Ichiro, whose circumstantial meeting with a famous singer (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) is twisted by the tabloid press into a torrid affair. Ichiro files a lawsuit against the seedy gossip magazine, but his lawyer Hiruta (Kurosawa stalwart Takashi Shimura) is playing both sides. A portrait of cultural moral decline, "Scandal" is also a compelling courtroom drama and a moving tale of human redemption.

"The Idiot" (1951, 166 min.)

After finishing what would become his international phenomenon "Rashomon," Kurosawa immediately turned to one of the most daring and problem-plagued productions of his career. "The Idiot," an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky´s nineteenth-century masterpiece about a wayward, pure soul´s reintegration into society – updated by Kurosawa to capture post-war Japan´s aimlessness – was a victim of studio interference and, finally, public indifference. Today this "folly" looks ever more fascinating, a stylish, otherworldly evocation of one man´s wintry mindscape.