Director Steven Okazaki, a longtime friend and partner of ANT-Hiroshima, has recently released a new documentary on the life and work of iconic actor Toshiro Mifune, titled Mifune: The Last Samurai. The film introduces viewers to prewar samurai cinema before delving into how Mifune, often in collaboration with filmmaking giant Akira Kurosawa, revised and modernized the genre in the postwar decades.
In an interview with indiewire.com, Okazaki said of Mifune’s achievements and unique screen presence, “He was shy and brash, funny and cool, silly and deadly serious. That’s what made him so dynamic. But it’s his integrity as an artist and a person that made people love and respect him.”
Mifune is distributed by Strand Releasing and will have staggered releases in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Berkeley, Honolulu, and San Francisco over the next month, with more U.S. city releases to be announced in 2017.
Watch the trailer for Mifune below:
ANT-Hiroshima’s previous collaboration with Okazaki include his films The Mushroom Club (2005) and White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2007). ANT-Hiroshima, under Executive Director Tomoko Watanabe, helped Okazaki coordinate interviews with hibakusha for his documentaries and now holds a screening of White Light/Black Rain in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome every year on August 6. Tomoko-san was a producer for The Mushroom Club and a consulting producer for White Light/Black Rain.
