It’s often thought in circles of Akira Kurosawa fans that Toshiro
Mifune was his greatest acting collaborator (Kurosawa himself believed Mifune
to be “a kind of talent I had never encountered before”). I however, not to
discredit Mifune’s skills, find myself leaning towards the most prolific of
Kurosawa’s acting collaborators, Takashi Shimura. From Kurosawa’s debut in
1943, Shimura appeared in twenty-one of the master’s thirty films, the
recurring trait of each of his terrific roles in the likes of Drunken Angel,
Stray Dog, Rashomon, Ikiru and Seven Samurai (not to mention parts in monster
movies such as Godzilla) being the key ingredient of humanity. Each of his
characters, however flawed or troubled, are inherently sympathetic, engaging
the audience’s empathy to their plight. A really wonderful actor.
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