Kurosawa Book Review

On 30th March in 2000 associate professor of Japanese, Cinema, and comparative literature at the
University of Iowa, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto published “Kurosawa. Film Studies and Japanese Cinema”
after years of working on it with the help of his film tutor Masao Miyoshi.

Yoshimoto’s book progresses through Kurosawa’s career, devoting a chapter long essay to each of
Kurosawa’s works. His analysis questions many of the assumptions, frameworks and methods that
have traditionally been taken for granted in Japanese film.

Yoshimoto’s central argument is that Kurosawa’s works went against both Japan’s self-image as well
the West’s image of Japan, and in doing so confused film critics in both Japan and the rest of the
world. This, in Yoshimoto’s view, has for certain ideological purposes led to a fake version of
“Japanese Cinema”, with Kurosawa’s works having been used at the centre of this process.

While the central thesis of the book is the reaction to earlier critical works, Yoshimoto’s book is never
just an exercise in film criticism theory and doesn’t even require any real background knowledge to
understand. His analyses of Kurosawa’s works are some of the most thorough and inspiring takes on
the subject available in the English language.

Saying that, I couldn’t recommend this book more for anyone who either wants to know more about
this revolutionary director or just want to investigate specific films, then this is the book for you, go
on then, get reading.