Red Beard

This is the film that ended the working relationship between Toshiro Mifune and Akira Kurosawa, a production that went for two years, required a massive amount of art direction to bring Kurosawa’s vision of a 19th century village to life (that we barely see in the film), involved sickness across many cast and crew, and required Mifune to keep a full beard for the whole time. It apparently went so far that Mifune was unable to find other work at the time due to his commitments to the long pro...