The early 1970s marked a torrid time for legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Coming off the back of his first outright commercial failure with “Dodes'ka-den” (1970) and having been fired from the Hollywood project “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (1970), the director attempted to take his own life in 1971, miraculously surviving. However, the auteur's fortunes would take a turn the following year, as studio Mosfilm of the Soviet Union offered him the opportunity to adapt V.K. Arsenyev's 1923 memoir “Dersu Uzala”. Having wanted to work with the material earlier in his career, Kurosawa accepted, thus producing one of his most overlooked epics.
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The Russian language film follows Captain Vladimir Arsenyev (Yuriy Solomin), a soldier leading a group of men on a topography mission in Imperial Russia's vast Ussuri region. One night, his camp is visited by the nomad hunter, Dersu Uzala (Maksim Munzuk...
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The Russian language film follows Captain Vladimir Arsenyev (Yuriy Solomin), a soldier leading a group of men on a topography mission in Imperial Russia's vast Ussuri region. One night, his camp is visited by the nomad hunter, Dersu Uzala (Maksim Munzuk...
- 5/11/2023
- by Tom Wilmot
- AsianMoviePulse
Akira Kurosawa's 1975 film "Dersu Uzala," his only film not in Japanese, is about a team of Russian surveyors who are tasked with mapping a portion of the country's eastern wilderness. While on their mission, they come upon a small, elderly man who has been living off the land most of his life. He is peaceful, wise, and possessed of a gentle friendliness. Without much in the way of negotiation, this man, named Dersu Uzala (Maxim Munzuk), takes the Russian surveyors under his wing, and gently instructs them on how to complete their mission in harmony with nature. This involves surviving storms and avoiding trappers.
"Star Wars" creator George Lucas has gone on record with his affection for the films of Kurosawa, and how he based "Star Wars" on elements from Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress." Ever since, essayists have expounded extensively on the connection between the two filmmakers. I trust...
"Star Wars" creator George Lucas has gone on record with his affection for the films of Kurosawa, and how he based "Star Wars" on elements from Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress." Ever since, essayists have expounded extensively on the connection between the two filmmakers. I trust...
- 1/26/2023
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
What a great way to encounter such an unusual masterpiece — Akira Kurosawa reenergized his creative career with this ambitious, uncompromised historical epic, filmed for Mosfilm on location in the wilds of far-East Siberia. A local woodsman becomes a guide for a Russian survey team, and a great friendship is formed. It’s like nothing Kurosawa made before or since — an adventure that stresses nature-friendly philosophy over action. The good extras are topped by Stuart Galbraith IV’s expert commentary, which includes three additional specialists to cover this film and its director in full fascinating detail.
Dersu Uzala
Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 158
1975 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 142 min. / Street Date September 28, 2022 / Available from Imprint / aud 34.95
Starring: Yuriy Solomin, Maksim Munzuk, Mikhail Bychkov. Svetlana Danilchenko.
Cinematography: Asakazu Nakai, Fyodor Dobronravov, Yuriy Gantman
Production Designer: Yurily Raksha
Costume Design: Tatyana Lichmanova
Film Editor: Valentina Stepannova
Original Music: Isaac Schwarts
Written by Akira Kurosawa, Yuri Nagibin from the book Dersi okhotnikbyV.
Dersu Uzala
Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 158
1975 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 142 min. / Street Date September 28, 2022 / Available from Imprint / aud 34.95
Starring: Yuriy Solomin, Maksim Munzuk, Mikhail Bychkov. Svetlana Danilchenko.
Cinematography: Asakazu Nakai, Fyodor Dobronravov, Yuriy Gantman
Production Designer: Yurily Raksha
Costume Design: Tatyana Lichmanova
Film Editor: Valentina Stepannova
Original Music: Isaac Schwarts
Written by Akira Kurosawa, Yuri Nagibin from the book Dersi okhotnikbyV.
- 12/13/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Earlier this year, it was announced that Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection — perhaps the two most trusted names in the distribution and exhibition of important classic and contemporary cinema — would be joining forces to create a streaming service dedicated to sharing their combined library with cinephiles around the world. For months, it sounded too good to be true. Today, it suddenly became as real as the screen in front of your face.
If the movies are truly as dead as they say, then FilmStruck is nothing short of heaven on Earth. It’s here, it’s alive, and hot damn has it come out of the gate swinging. Hundreds of essential titles are ready to go on launch day, and while hundreds more are imminently on the way, there’s already more than enough to satisfy whatever mood you’re in and scratch itches that you didn’t even know you had.
If the movies are truly as dead as they say, then FilmStruck is nothing short of heaven on Earth. It’s here, it’s alive, and hot damn has it come out of the gate swinging. Hundreds of essential titles are ready to go on launch day, and while hundreds more are imminently on the way, there’s already more than enough to satisfy whatever mood you’re in and scratch itches that you didn’t even know you had.
- 11/1/2016
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
(Akira Kurosawa, 1975, Artificial Eye, U)
In the early 1970s Akira Kurosawa's fortunes and spirit were at a low ebb. He'd been dropped by Hollywood from the Pearl Harbor epic Tora! Tora! Tora! in which he had invested much time and energy. His first colour film Dodes'ka-den was a critical and box-office failure. A crisis in the Japanese film industry had made financing his movies impossible. As a result he attempted suicide. But eventually his career was restored by a Soviet invitation to direct a film version of a non-fiction work he'd loved in his youth, and back in the 1940s he had planned a Japanese version that was aborted, partly due to unsuitable locations but mainly because its themes were in conflict with Japanese militarism. Published in 1923, the book is a memoir by the Russian army engineer Captain Vladimir Arsenyev about his friendship with a nomadic hunter, Dersu Uzala,...
In the early 1970s Akira Kurosawa's fortunes and spirit were at a low ebb. He'd been dropped by Hollywood from the Pearl Harbor epic Tora! Tora! Tora! in which he had invested much time and energy. His first colour film Dodes'ka-den was a critical and box-office failure. A crisis in the Japanese film industry had made financing his movies impossible. As a result he attempted suicide. But eventually his career was restored by a Soviet invitation to direct a film version of a non-fiction work he'd loved in his youth, and back in the 1940s he had planned a Japanese version that was aborted, partly due to unsuitable locations but mainly because its themes were in conflict with Japanese militarism. Published in 1923, the book is a memoir by the Russian army engineer Captain Vladimir Arsenyev about his friendship with a nomadic hunter, Dersu Uzala,...
- 1/8/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Maksim Munzuk Dersu Uzala Three Academy Award-nominated/-winning films by Akira Kurosawa will be shown tonight on Turner Classic Movies: Dersu Uzala (1975), Kagemusha (1980), and Ran (1985). Winner of the 1975 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, the poetic Dersu Uzala chronicles the difficulties encountered by a Siberian hunter (Maksim Munzuk) who’s brought to civilization by a Russian explorer whose life the hunter had saved. Based on a real-life story, Dersu Uzala was Kurosawa’s first film following his suicide attempt in the early ’70s. In Kagemusha, a thief impersonates a powerful — but deceased — warlord. Kagemusha was nominated for Best Art Direction and Best Foreign Language Film Oscars. Additionally, Kurosawa’s epic shared the Palme d’Or with Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz. Ran is [...]...
- 3/30/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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