Mifune Toshiro dead at 77

[Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow]

I just woke up this morning (Christmas morning) and saw the news in the 
paper:

MIFUNE TOSHIRO DEAD

Mifune, famous for such films as _Shichinin no samurai_ and _Rashomon_, 
died at 9:28 pm on Wednesday, December 24th at the age of 77.  He had not 
been in good shape since he had a heart attack in 1993, so the news was 
not that unexpected.  Still, he was one of my favorite actors and his 
death seems again to signal the definite end to a certain period of 
Japanese film history.

The first Japanese film I remember seeing was in fact _Shichinin_.  I saw 
it on public TV in Seattle when I was 7 years old and was so impressed by 
Mifune's character I cried my heart out when he died at the end.  I liked 
him in everything I saw after that, but as I grew older, I did begin to 
feel his immense aura on the screen was more due to his charismatic star 
presence than brilliant acting.  (This is not to insult him, merely to 
point out what kind of screen figure he was.)  In terms of his 
contemporaries, Nakadai Tatsuya was more the acting star.  Coming to 
Japan, I was able to see more of the earlier jidaigeki stars and gained 
more appreciation for how different Mifune was: not trained in kabuki or 
even Shinkokugeki, he was truly a modern jidaigeki star, coming out of 
gendaigeki and radiating the energy, violence, and contradictions of the 
postwar in his character.  Later, I've come to prefer Kataoka Chiezo, 
Okochi Denjiro and, of course, Bantsuma as more quintessimal jidaigeki 
stars, but Mifune was special.

I'd like to hear others comments on Mifune.

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
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