Mifune, Toshiro

Toshiro Mifune was born in Qingdao (occupied by Japan since the beginning of World War I) in a Japanese family. His father Tokuzo Mifune was a merchant and owner of a photo studio. Toshiro grew up in Dalian , where his family moved in 1925, he had two brothers. In his youth, he worked in his father's photo studio. Until the age of nineteen, he lived in China, but as a Japanese citizen he was drafted into the army of Japan, where he served in the Air Force in the aerial photography department.

In 1946, Mifune demobilized and arrived in Tokyo . He went to work at the Toho film company as an assistant cameraman . At that time, a large group of actors left the film company after a long strike, and it organized a contest to find “new faces”, in which 4,000 people participated. Mifune attracted the attention of director Kajiro Yamamoto . At the same competition, Mifune met the actress Sachiko Yoshimine, who in 1950 would become his wife.

The first films with the participation of Mifune were released in the same 1947 - “ Time of New Fools ” by Kajiro Yamamoto and “ On the Other Side of the Silver Ridge ” by Seggiti Taniguchi .

On the set of the second film, he met Akira Kurosawa . In 1948, Kurosawa's movie “ Drunken Angel ” was released, where Mifune played the main role - the young gangster Matsunagu. From this film began the long-term cooperation of the actor and director. International fame came to both of them after the film “ Rashomon ” (1950) after the story of the classic Japanese literature Akutagawa Ryunosuke “In the Most”. Mifune played robber Tadzemaru. The Japanese critic Iwasaki wrote that once, while awaiting the installation of scenery, the creative team of Rasemon was watching a geographical film about Africa. And when a lion appeared on the screen, the director exclaimed: “Look, Mifune, because this is your Tadzemaru!”.

In 1951, Kurosawa filmed Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot , moving the plot to Japan. Mifune played the Japanese version of the merchant Rogozhin in this film. " Seven Samurai " (1954) was one of the most important films in the works of both Mifune and Kurosawa. In the story of how seven poor samurai protect the village from thugs, Mifune played the role of the samurai impostor Kikuchiyo.

Mifune was filmed a lot with other directors. In particular, he three times embodied in the cinema the image of the legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi . The first film of the trilogy " Samurai: The Way of the Warrior " was released in 1954, the sequels followed in 1955 and 1956.

New films of the creative tandem Kurosawa-Mifune were released: “The Throne in the Blood ” (1957; Shakespeare's play “ Macbeth ”), “ At the Bottom ” (1957; after the play of the same name by Maxim Gorky ), “ Three Wretches in a Hidden Fortress ” (1958), The Bodyguard (1961; according to Deshil Hammett ’s novel The Bloody Harvest ). In 1962, the actor founded the film company Mifune Production ( Mifune Production ), which still exists today.

The last joint work of Kurosawa and Mifune was the drama " Red Beard " (1965). Personal disagreements destroyed the tandem, the ways of the actor and the director diverged: Mifune continued to exploit the image of a samurai, and Kurosawa deviated from this subject.

Since the beginning of the 1960s, Mifune has been actively acting in European and American cinema. In Terence Young ’s western The Red Sun (1971) Mifune plays the samurai from the retinue of the Japanese ambassador, and his partners in the film, Charles Bronson and Alain Delon, are bandits from the Wild West . In 1979, he acted as commander of a Japanese submarine in the satirical comedy Steven Spielberg “ 1941 ”, and in 1980 in the four-part film “ Shogun ”, where he again embodies the image of a samurai as daimyo Toranagi . George Lucas wanted to invite Mifune to play the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the fourth episode of Star Wars ^[6] .

In 1992, Mifune had heart problems. After that, he practically ceased to act in films, finally ending his career in 1995. The actor died in 1997 . The funeral was organized jointly by the Toho, Mifune Production and Kurosawa Production film companies.

The British Film Institute calls Toshiro Mifune "the most famous Japanese actor in the Western world" ^[7] . During his life he was awarded numerous awards, including the Venice Film Festival prize.

In 1997, Empire magazine included Mifune in the list of the hundred best film actors of all time; and in 2006, his role in the film "The Bodyguard " was in the list of the hundred greatest roles of all time, compiled by the magazine Premiere ^[8] .

On September 7, 2015, a documentary about the work and life of the actor was released - “ Mifune: The Last Samurai ”.

On November 15, 2016, he was posthumously honored with a personal star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .

• 1958 — премия « Майнити » как лучшему актёру («Трон в крови»)
• 1961 — приз как лучшему актёру на Венецианском кинофестивале («Телохранитель»)
• 1962 — премия Blue Ribbon Awards как лучшему актёру («Телохранитель»)
• 1965 — приз как лучшему актёру на Венецианском кинофестивале («Красная борода»)
• 1966 — премия Blue Ribbon Awards как лучшему актёру («Красная борода»)
• 1988 — премия «Майнити» как лучшему актёру второго плана («Тора-сан едет на север»)
• 1988 — премия Blue Ribbon Awards как лучшему актёру второго плана («Тора-сан едет на север»)
• 1998 — специальный приз Японской академии

• Генс И. Ю. Тосиро Мифунэ. — М. : Искусство, 1974. — 128 с., 23 л. ил. with. — (Мастера зарубежного киноискусства).

• Официальный сайт (яп.) (англ.)
• Мацуда Митико. Мифунэ Тосиро, кинозвезда мирового класса (рус.) . nippon.com (30 декабря 2015).
• Тосиро Мифунэ на сайте shinema.ru
• Тосиро Мифунэ на сайте World Art
• Тосиро Мифунэ (англ.) на сайте Internet Movie Database