In Kurosawa’s period crime drama Rashomon (1950), Mifune played a bandit who, depending on the telling of the film’s multifaceted story, could be brutal or buffoonish but was always startling in his vitality. The film captivated an international audience that had most likely never seen a Japanese film before.

The 25 best Japanese movies of the 21st century

Mifune went on to star in some of Kurosawa’s most well-known films, playing characters ranging from a bombastic peasant warrior in Seven Samurai to a desperate shoe company executive in the crime drama High and Low (1963).

The actor’s last appearance in a Kurosawa film was in the 1965 period drama Red Beard, after which the director never again reached the same heights of popularity.

 Although their falling out remains something of a mystery, Kurosawa’s notorious perfectionism was said to be a factor in ending of their partnership. For example, he did not let Mifune cut his facial hair for the duration of the lengthy Red Beard shoot, even as months turned into years and the actor (then at his professional peak) had to turn down choice roles in other projects.

With age, Kurosawa’s projects became smaller and more personal. His last was Madadayo, a 1993 film about a retired teacher who defies his own ageing by ritually downing a huge mug of beer every year to the applause of his former students.

Kurosawa was not so fortunate, and ill health eventually forced him to retire. By his death in 1998 at the age of 88, his work was falling out of critical favour.

His films, critics said, were too focused on male heroism and women were under-represented.

Kurosawa’s films paved the way for other Japanese directors to make their mark, from Yasujiro Ozu, known for family-centred films, to Hayao Miyazaki, master of animated films.

Any “top 10” list drawn from Kurosawa’s 30 films is bound to raise an eyebrow or two, as films considered misfires by some will be seen as masterpieces by others. (This writer’s own pick for the “misfire” category is The Idiot, a stolid 1951 adaptation of a Fyodor Dostoevsky novel of the same name, featuring an overwrought Setsuko Hara.) That said, here are my own 10 favourites, in order of release:

1. Drunken Angel (1948)

A young Toshiro Mifune stars as a gangster dying of tuberculosis who befriends an alcoholic doctor (Takashi Shimura), and ends up fighting a lethal battle for gang supremacy.

Although melodramatic, this film was nonetheless the first to honestly depict the chaotic reality of Japan in its early post-war years.

2. Stray Dog (1949)

A rookie detective (Mifune) loses his gun to a pickpocket and, with the aid of a canny veteran police officer (Shimura), goes on a frantic search for it. This early attempt at film noir conveys everything, from the shimmery summer heat to the hero’s sweaty desperation, with a pulsing immediacy.

3. Rashomon (1950)

Based on a short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, this film is about a bandit (Mifune) on trial for the murder of a samurai and the rape of his wife. It offers three different accounts of the fatal encounter – and no pat resolution.

Both the plot structure and Kazuo Miyagawa’s haunting light-through-the-trees cinematography were considered groundbreaking.

4. Ikiru (1952)

A petty bureaucrat (Shimura) learns he has terminal cancer and he tries to make something of his so-far-wasted life. Shimura’s career-peak performance is terrifying, thought-provoking, heartbreaking and uplifting – and never for a moment sentimental.

5. Seven Samurai (1954)

In Kurosawa’s masterpiece, the title samurai are hired by a peasant village to protect it against bandits. The film works brilliantly as action entertainment, with Mifune seen as a stand-out as for his turn as a comically swaggering peasant-turned-warrior. Its climatic pathos hits hard.

6. Throne of Blood (1957)

Kurosawa’s take on Shakespeare’s Macbeth is filmmaking on a grand scale, with countless samurai extras milling about and fog constantly billowing around a massive castle.

More memorable, though, are the bone-chilling atmospherics modelled on Noh drama (a form of classical Japanese dance-drama) and Mifune’s doomed lord, realistically terrified in one scene by dozens of real arrows thudding into the wall behind him.

7. The Hidden Fortress (1958)

Famous for being the film that inspired the Star Wars series, this action adventure focuses on two bumbling peasants caught up in a scheme by a fiery samurai general (Mifune) to escort a wilful princess (Misa Uehara) through enemy territory.

Full of comic slapstick and breathtaking escapes, this is as close as Kurosawa ever came to popcorn entertainment.

8. Yojimbo (1961)

Here, Mifune is in his most indelible role as a carefree ronin (a masterless samurai) who drifts into a town run by two gangs and plays one against the other for fun and profit.

The Sergio Leone remake, A Fistful of Dollars, launched the film career of US actor Clint Eastwood, but the original is still the best.

9. High and Low (1963)

An embattled shoe company president (Mifune) risks financial ruin by paying the ransom for his chauffeur’s kidnapped son. This tense thriller showcases Kurosawa’s agile use of widescreen, while commenting on the growing wealth gap in Japan’s economic boom years. Tsutomu Yamazaki’s performance as the kidnapper is explosive, too.

10. Ran (1985)

Kurosawa took inspiration from Shakespeare’s King Lear in filming this period epic about an elderly lord (Tatsuya Nakadai) who divides his domain among his three adult sons and lives to regret it. Spectacular battle scenes are balanced by an intimate story of betrayal, rage, madness and love.

One of the highlights is Mieko Harada’s stone-cold turn as the scheming, merciless, deeply wronged Lady Kaede.