Product Details

• Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Machiko Kyô, Eijirô Tôno
• Directors: Akira Kurosawa
• Writers: Akira Kurosawa, Anonymous, Eijirô Hisaita, Evan Hunter, Fumio Hayasaka
• Format: Box set, Black & White, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 25
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Criterion
• DVD Release Date: December 8, 2009
• Run Time: 3072 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002NOZUEW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,937 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "AK 100: 25 Films of Akira Kurosawa (The Criterion Collection)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

The creator of such timeless masterpieces as Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and High and Low, Akira Kurosawa is one of the most influential and beloved filmmakers who ever lived—and for many the greatest artist the medium has known. Now, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, the Criterion Collection is proud to present this deluxe box set celebrating his astonishing career. Featuring twenty-five of the films he made over the course of his fifty years in movies—from samurai epics to postwar noirs to Shakespeare adaptations—AK 100 is the most complete set of his works ever released in this country, and includes four rare films that have never been available on DVD.

Includes:
Sanshiro Sugata (1943)
Akira Kurosawa’s dazzling debut as a director is about the rivalry between judo and jujitsu, and it concerns the moral education and enlightenment of Sanshiro, played by Susumu Fujita.

The Most Beautiful (1944)
Akira Kurosawa’s patriotic World War II morale booster focuses on a volunteer corps of women working at an optics factory to produce lenses for binoculars and targeting scopes, and was shot on location at the Nippon Kogaku factory in Hiratsuka.

Sanshiro Sugata Part Two (1945)
This sequel to Akira Kurosawa’s first film, which Kurosawa was compelled to make under studio pressure, reunites most of the principal cast members from the original.

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945)
The story of Kurosawa’s The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail derives from Noh and Kabuki plays depicting a famous twelfth-century incident in which the lord Yoshitsune and a small group of samurai cross enemy territory disguised as monks and must persuade border guards to let them through.

No Regrets for Our Youth (1946)
In Akira Kurosawa’s first film after the end of World War II, future beloved Ozu regular Setsuko Hara gives an astonishing performance as Yukie, who transforms herself from genteel bourgeois daughter to independent social activist during a tumultuous decade in Japanese history.

One Wonderful Sunday (1947)
This affectionate paean to young love is also a frank examination by Akira Kurosawa of the harsh realities of postwar Japan. During a Sunday trip into war-ravaged Tokyo, Yuzo and Masako look for work and lodging, as well as affordable entertainments to pass the time.

Drunken Angel (1948)
In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura’s jaded physician.

Stray Dog (1949)
When a pickpocket steals a rookie detective’s gun on a hot, crowded bus, the cop goes undercover in a desperate attempt to right the wrong. Kurosawa’s thrilling noir probes the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.

Scandal (1950)
A handsome, suave Toshiro Mifune lights up the screen as painter Ichiro, whose circumstantial meeting with a famous singer is twisted by the tabloid press into a torrid affair. Ichiro files a lawsuit against the seedy gossip magazine, but his lawyer, Hiruta (Takashi Shimura), is playing both sides.

Rashomon (1950)
The murder of a man and the rape of his wife in a forest grove—seen from four different perspectives. Akira Kurosawa’s meditation on the nature of “truth” transformed narrative cinema as we know it.

The Idiot (1951)
The Idiot, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece about a wayward, pure soul’s reintegration into society—updated by Kurosawa to capture Japan’s postwar aimlessness—was a victim of studio interference and public indifference. Today, this “folly” looks ever more fascinating.

Ikiru (1952)
An aging bureaucrat with stomach cancer decides to strip the veneer off his existence and find meaning in his final days. Considered by some to be Akira Kurosawa’s greatest achievement, Ikiru offers a multifaceted look at a life through a prism of perspectives.

Seven Samurai (1954)
In Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai), sixteenth-century villagers hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits. This gripping three-hour ride is one of the most beloved movie epics of all time.

I Live in Fear (1955)
I Live in Fear presents Toshiro Mifune as an elderly, stubborn businessman so fearful of a nuclear attack that he resolves to move his reluctant family to South America. Kurosawa depicts a society emerging from the shadows but still terrorized by memories of the past and anxieties for the future.

Throne of Blood (1957)
Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood reimagines Macbeth in feudal Japan. Starring Kurosawa’s longtime collaborator Toshiro Mifune and the legendary Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife, the film tells of a valiant warrior’s savage rise to power and his ignominious fall.

The Lower Depths (1957)
Working with his most celebrated actor, Toshiro Mifune, Akira Kurosawa faithfully adapts Maxim Gorky’s classic proletariat play, keeping the original’s focus on the conflict between illusion and reality.

The Hidden Fortress (1958)
A general and a princess must dodge enemy clans while smuggling the royal treasure out of hostile territory with two bumbling, conniving peasants at their sides; it’s a spirited adventure that only Akira Kurosawa could create.

The Bad Sleep Well (1960)
A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing The Bad Sleep Well. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect.

Yojimbo (1961)
To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune) turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage in Akira Kurosawa’s visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo.

Sanjuro (1962)
In Kurosawa’s sly companion piece to Yojimbo, the jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan’s evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a “proper” samurai on its ear.

High and Low (1963)
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential High and Low, a compelling race-against-time thriller and a penetrating portrait of contemporary Japanese society.

Red Beard (1965)
A testament to the goodness of humankind, Akira Kurosawa’s Red Beard chronicles the tumultuous relationship between an arrogant young doctor and a compassionate clinic director (Toshiro Mifune, in his last role for Kurosawa).

Dodes’ka-den (1970)
By turns tragic and transcendent, Akira Kurosawa’s Dodes’ka-den follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Kurosawa’s gloriously shot first color film displays all of his hopes, fears, and artistic passion.

Kagemusha (1980)
In his late, color masterpiece, Akira Kurosawa returns to the samurai film and to a primary theme of his career—the play between illusion and reality. Sumptuously reconstructing the splendor of feudal Japan and the pageantry of war, Kurosawa creates a meditation on the nature of power.

Madadayo (1993)
Kurosawa’s final film is a tribute to Hyakken Uchida (Tatsuo Matsmura), an educator and writer of enormously popular aphoristic stories. Based on Uchida’s writings, the film pieces a narrative together with distinct episodes—anecdotes and parties, ceremonies and celebrations.

Stills from AK 100 (Click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Awesome... but falls short., January 12, 2010

By 

JediFonger "JediFonger" (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: AK 100: 25 Films of Akira Kurosawa (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

Congratulations & thank you Criterion for releasing all of their Akira Kurosawa films in a boxset!

Not many people know that they need to pay license fees for the right to release AK movies and movies like Ran have "expired" and that is precisely why it is not included here. At the time of this review, their DVD is out of print. They were scheduled to release the Blu-Ray last August, but since the rights expired, Criterion pulled the title from schedule. Why release it for a few weeks only for it to go out of print? The rights to Ran defaulted back to Studio Canal. Furthermore, Criterion never obtained the rights to the other 4 missing titles:

The Quiet Duel
Dersu Uzala
Dreams
Rhapsody in August

I'm not an insider so I do not know the business decisions (remember they are a business first!) but I have a feeling that it isn't because Criterion didn't try to get the license. It's possible that either the license/copyright owners want too much money or there might not have been a great film print to begin with! It's not like Criterion is sitting around with nothing to do =P. So, it isn't really Criterion's fault for not including every single film Akira Kurosawa directed, i believe this boxset is everything Criterion had rights to!!! They already released every AK they owned! And for that, I am grateful!

Now, onto the set itself, every single film is presented in the usual excellent picture quality and audio presentation! If you have purchased Criterion products in the past before, you already know that they deliver the very BEST technical film presentation than anyone else in the industry. So if you were wondering what if Criterion skimped on quality, I would stop wondering, they did not skimp on anything in this boxset! All grain is preserved and the picture is clear and sharp and audio cleaned up so you can hear everything. Pretty good for 60+ year old film negatives on the early films!

Ok, so there is probably only 1 film that you are wondering how they can squeeze what was once a 2 disc high bitrate release (from the 3 disc edition) down to 1 disc. I'm talking about the Seven Samurai, of course. I have to remind you that Criterion has released that title 3 times (correct me if I'm wrong). The first is the barebone movie only version during the early days of DVDs! The second release, Criterion took the video from the first, cleaned it a bit, and added more bonus/extra. The third release is the definitive remastering of the film negative that is so sharp and awesome they needed 2 discs (it is an almost 4 hour movie after all). Did they do it right by squeezing it into 1 disc? Absolutely. Why? Improvements in MPEG-2 compression knowledge over the years. MPEG-2 is a VERY mature technology by now. It's been 13+ years since DVDs debuted. Every year or so it has improved more and more, squeezing more quality out of less disk space than previously required. So rest assured everything else is golden here.

That brings to me to why I gave this 3 stars. The only Kurosawa Criterion I have is the 3 disc Seven Samurai because I was really waiting for a boxset like AK 100 to come along! The Seven Samurai is my favorite film of all time and Akira Kurosawa is my favorite director of all time, but I never bought AK movies on DVD because I've been waiting for a "definitive" Criterion collection. By that I meant, a boxset of all bonus/extras that have been released TOO! Not just the films themselves!

Which makes me wonder who this set is target. I know one of the audiences they want to bring in are people who have never purchased any AK films. It would seem like I am their target... yet I am disappointed because they didn't include all the PREVIOUSLY released bonus/extras! Before I got this, I assumed that this boxset would include EVERYTHING, my 3 disc Seven Samurai, all of the Criterion AK movies that have been released and previously unreleased material with even MORE bonus material. Instead I'm left with JUST THE FILMS themselves, which isn't bad at all! They are excellent films! It's just I feel cheated now because I'm expected to be brought upto speed w/the rest of the AK collectors (over the years) who have purchased the single disc editions for the bonus/extras. Instead, I'm left with the impression that Criterion is basically saying: "you should have been buying those AK Criterion releases all along, we were never going to include the bonus/extras in a boxset you silly goose!"

The other side of the coin, you've already read the reviews by existing AK collectors. They have most of the releases except the titles missing on this set, which will eventually get their own single title releases.

Which begs the ultimate question, does this mean that when the single movie Criterion releases DO happen (not the Eclipse versions) that they will have bonus/extras for each and every single AK films (even the early ones)? That will basically render this boxset moot because I'd rather get every single movie w/bonus, extras and wait for all that to come to fruition than to have this now and be left without extras in the future.

Meanwhile, I have stopped buying DVDs anyways, I'm moving onto Blu-Rays, I have Kagemusha and plan on grabbing Sanjuro/Yijimbo double pack. The Seven Samurai Blu-Ray should be out this fall or next spring at the latest. I hope they get to a point where they can release a boxset like this in Blu-Ray format WITH all the bonus features from the Blu-Ray. But, I, for one, am going to start grabbing AK on Blu-Ray one by one instead of waiting like I did in the past.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good films,but a poor release, February 25, 2010

By 

Michael Schulze (Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: AK 100: 25 Films of Akira Kurosawa (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

As there is so much written about this Box I want to share my opinion on it too !
First of all you already know that these DVDs are plain film,no extras!For a price around 300 dollars that's absolutely unacceptable,even though the films themself are pure masterpieces!
So my 5 Star-Rating only concerns the films,but not this poor release.
But even if the films don't contain any bonusmaterial,why are they also don't feature optional soundtrack-versions like a few of the individual Criterion-Releases have?
For instance the individual Release of "Rashomon" (Spine No. 138)also contains an optional english dubbed soundtrack.
The individual Criterion-releases of "The Hidden Fortress" (Spine No.116) , "Yojimbo" (Spine No.52) and "Sanjuro" (Spine No.53) also contain an optional 3.0 Soundtrack,while the releases in this box are only monaural. The individual release of "Throne of Blood" (Spine No. 190) contains 2 different subtitles to choose. One from japanese film translator Linda Hoaglund,the other from Donald Richie.The DVD in this box only features the Donald-Richie-Subtitles.
And of course the film "Dodes'ka-den".....While in 1995 released on Criterion-Laserdisc (LD 291)with a 1,66/1 format,the later DVD-Release was cut to a 1,33/1 format (The individual release (Spine No. 465) as well as the DVD in this box)!
And don't let anyone fool you by telling you how good the quality of the picture and sound are.The 4 early films that are released here for the first time ("Sanjiro Sugata part 1 and part 2","The Most Beautiful" and "Those who Tread on the Tigers Tail")have a poor picture and sound quality.In fact even someone who's able understanding the japanese language can't watch the films "Sanjiro Sugata Part 1 and 2" without subtitles.The soundtrack is to poor to understand the whole film.
The 5 films that have already been released as Eclipse Series 7 ,Postwar Kurosawa("No Regrets for Our Youth","One Wonderful Sunday","Scandal","The Idiot" and "I live in Fear") have a better picture and sound then those four films mentioned before,but still not the ultimate.I got better releases of some of these five films from other countries in my collection.

But the other 15 films that are also individually available from Criterion do have a brilliant picture and sound !!!

At last one really positive thing is that this collection contains the 3-hour japanese cut of the film "Kagemusha",not the 2 and a half hour international cut that's avalable all over the world.
Sad Thing is that "The Quiet Duel","Dersu Uzala","Ran" and "Dreams" are not included in this box(I Love those films !).
As some other reviews already stated,the missing of "Rhapsody in August" is Ok.(I don't like That film!)
But those 5 films are individually available.
"Ran" as Criterion-Collection Double-DVD Spine No.316.But if you want the Criterion-DVD then you must be fast ,it's already OOP (Out Of Print).

40 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mou ii kai?, September 6, 2009

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: AK 100: 25 Films of Akira Kurosawa (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

Akira Kurosawa is one of those directors that requires absolutely no introduction at all... but I'll do it anyway.

In short, Kurosawa was one of the most legendary film directors in cinematic history -- he not only inspired other great directors, but he splintered your basic movie conventions ("Rashomon"), inspired others (the wipe! Slow motion action!) and created the standard for Japanese action, drama and historical movies. "AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa" is basically what it sounds like: twenty five movies by Kurosawa (including some never before released in the U.S.).

It includes all the classic films that Kurosawa is so famous for -- "Seven Samurai," "Sanjuro," "Yojimbo" and "The Hidden Fortress." Kurosawa packs the movies with with brilliant stories of samurai, warlords, feisty princesses, goofy peasants, a wandering nameless ronin who has a penchant for cleaning out filthy corrupt towns, and a band of samurai who are trying to save a village of not-entirely-blameless peasants. The best of them: "Rashomon," in which a woman is raped and a man is murdered, but his killer's identity is the subject of some debate.

And then there are the period movies that people don't usually mention as quickly: "Kagemusha," "The Lower Depths," "Throne of "Blood," "Red Beard," and the Noh-inspired "The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail." With the exception of the last one (a semi-comedic story about a nobleman trying to avoid being killed by his brother), these stories are a bit darker in theme, with lots of cruel warlords, foul Edo apartment buildings, an arrogant young doctor in Edo who clashes with his new boss, and a Japanese-themed retelling of Macbeth. It even includes the brilliant two-part judo saga "Sanshiro Sugata," which were only Kurosawa's first and third movies in his long-ranging career.

Fortunately the box set also emphasizes Kurosawa's movies set in then-current times: it includes darker-hued, gritty movies like "Stray Dog," the propagandic "The Most Beautiful," "I Live In Fear," "Ikiru," "Scandal," "No Regrets For Our Youth," "The Bad Sleep Well," "Drunken Angel," and "High And Low." If anything, these movies have a wider range of topics -- Kurosara delves into darker facets of human nature with stories of revenge, family strife, police work, a dying man's last months, political destruction of people's lives, gangsters and corporate corruption.

But he also strays outside the basic outlines with stories like the lighthearted "One Wonderful Sunday", which focuses on a couple of lovers having a cheap day out in postwar Japan, and "Dodesukaden's" poignant tales of poverty-stricken people in a slum. The most brilliant of the contemporary movies: "Madadayo," the uplifting story of an elderly professor and his students.

"AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa" is basically a big collection of Kurosawa's movies, mostly of his more obscure works (including the early stuff) but containing most of his best-known works as well. Most of these have been released by Criterion before, but there are a few that haven't except as some old VHS tapes -- and the entire collection gives a very comprehensive look at the myriad styles and stories that Akira Kurosawa conjured like a magician.

Even from the earliest movies, Kurosawa imbues his movies with many layers: artistic flourishes that were unique at the time (aiming a camera at the sun), blood-spattering action, sly wit and powerful and insightful direction (the final exquisitely bittersweet scene of "Ikiru"). And he got some truly brilliant actors for these movies, most notable Toshiro Mifune -- he played a wide range of brilliant roles, including a crazed bandit, a "red beard" doctor, a powerful general, a Macbethian warlord, and a brilliant nameless ronin. Among others.

But as for the downsides -- for some reason it's missing films like "Ran," "Dreams" and the underrated "Dersu Uzala." And there don't seem to be many on-disc extras here -- there's new digital transfers, a "remembrance," and a book called "The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa,"

"AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa" shows the considerable range of this legendary director, with movies both famous and obscure -- ideally it would have had a few more, but it's still an outstanding collection.