The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune

Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune made sixteen feature films together, including Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, and High and Low -- all undisputed masterworks of world cinema. Kurosawa's films inspired blockbuster remakes and influenced directors like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese. Meanwhile, Mifune virtually invented the roaming warrior rogue, a character adapted with great success by actors like Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, Bruce Willis, and countless others. Their impact on the international film world is undisputable, yet at the very height of their abilities, Kurosawa and Mifune went their separate ways. After Red Beard in 1965 they would never work together again -- nor would they ever achieve the same level of success apart as they had together.

The Emperor and the Wolf is an in-depth look at the life and work of these two luminaries of cinema. Full of behind-the-scenes details about their tumultuous lives and stormy relationships with the studios and each other, it is also a provocative look at postwar American and Japanese culture and the different lenses through which the two societies viewed each other.