Toshirō Mifune

Japanese villagers hire a team of traveling samurai to defend them against a bandit attack.

In medieval Japan, four people offer conflicting accounts of a rape and murder.

Yojimbo is the story of Sanjuro, a samurai in nineteenth-century Japan who drifts into a rural town and learns from the innkeeper that the town is divided between two gangs.

Toshirô Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku).

A disillusioned Musashi Miyamoto (Toshiro Mifune) has turned his back on the samurai life, becoming a farmer in a remote village, while his nemesis Kojiro (Koji Tsuruta) now works for the shogun. Circumstances bring them back together for one final face-off. Though it’s marked by a memorably intense final battle sequence, the rousing conclusion to the Samurai Trilogy is engaged with matters of the heart as well, as Miyamoto must ask himself what it is that makes a warrior and a man.

Toshiro Mifune furiously embodies swordsman Musashi Miyamoto as he comes into his own in the action-packed middle section of the Samurai Trilogy. Duel at Ichijoji Temple furthers Miyamoto along his path to spiritual enlightenment, as well as further from the arms of the two women who love him: loyal Otsu (Kaoru Yachigusa) and conniving yet tragic Akemi (Mariko Okada). The film also brings him face to face with hoards of rivals intent on cutting him down, especially his legendary rival Kojiro (Koji Tsuruta). The titular climax is one of Japanese cinema’s most rousingly choreographed conflicts, intensified by Jun Yasumoto’s color cinematography and Ikuma Dan’s triumphant score.

Transposing the action to sixteenth century Japan, Kurosawa's re-telling of Shakespeare's Macbeth remains immensely successful. A truly remarkable film, Throne of Blood manages to combine beauty and terror to produce a mood of truly haunting power. Starring the irrepressible Toshiro Mifune as the doomed warlord Washizu and a wonderfully creepy turn by Isuzu Yamada as the Lady Macbeth inspired Asaji, the film shows Kurosawa's familiar mastery of atmosphere and action combined with the savagery of war.

In a Japanese slum, various residents play out their lives, dreaming of better things or settling for their lot. Among them is a man who pines for a young woman but is stymied by her deceptive family.

In medieval Japan, a samurai fights to save a feudal lord's daughter from bandits.

A surprising celebrity photograph sparks a court case as a tabloid magazine spins a scandalous story about a painter and a famous singer.

The follow-up to hugely successful Yojimbo, sees the return of star Toshiro Mifune as the samurai who cleans up corruption in a small town.

Featuring Toshiro Mifune's last role for Akira Kurosawa, Red Beard chronicles the tumultuous relationship between an arrogant young doctor and a compassionate clinic director.

During a sweltering summer, a rookie homicide detective tries to track down his stolen Colt pistol.

In this loose adaptation of Hamlet, Japanese police and a tycoon's son-in-law discover deadly corporate corruption.

After his army loses a battle, a young warrior returns to his village, where he's arrested for treason. He's spared from execution, but must spend three years studying the samurai code to earn his freedom.