this dvd-ography strikes me as something of a "one-timer"; that is, once you've seen it, there's no reason to see it ever again. in fact, if you've seen more than a few kurosawa films, once might be too many.
but used as an introduction to the filmmaker, "kurosawa" is worth watching, if you can look past editing techniques adam low and david kitson must have believed were clever, since they were (over)used throughout the piece. the main offender was the use of black and white footage, shot to try to emulate the look of kurosawa's films. however, it takes more than just switching to "BW" on your handycam to pull that off.
the other one that really stuck out in a long, painful-to-watch kind of way, was at the end (spoiler?) at the site of kurosawa's grave, from which smoke emanates. the editor reversed a slow zoom out to give the effect of zooming in on smoke *returning* to the grave. it must have lasted five minutes.
again, if you can look past these and are wondering what the deal is with all the hype about kurosawa, this is a wonderful place to find out.
but used as an introduction to the filmmaker, "kurosawa" is worth watching, if you can look past editing techniques adam low and david kitson must have believed were clever, since they were (over)used throughout the piece. the main offender was the use of black and white footage, shot to try to emulate the look of kurosawa's films. however, it takes more than just switching to "BW" on your handycam to pull that off.
the other one that really stuck out in a long, painful-to-watch kind of way, was at the end (spoiler?) at the site of kurosawa's grave, from which smoke emanates. the editor reversed a slow zoom out to give the effect of zooming in on smoke *returning* to the grave. it must have lasted five minutes.
again, if you can look past these and are wondering what the deal is with all the hype about kurosawa, this is a wonderful place to find out.