Toshiro Mifune

"Mifune" redirects here. For other uses, see Mifune (disambiguation).

The native form of this personal name is Mifune Toshirō. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Toshiro Mifune
三船 敏郎
Mifune in 1954
Born	(1920-04-01)1 April 1920 Qingdao, Shandong, China
Died	24 December 1997(1997-12-24) (aged 77) Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan
Resting place	Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan
Occupations	Actor film producer film director
Years active	1947–1995
Spouse	Sachiko Yoshimine ​ ​ (m. 1950; died 1995)​
Partner	Mika Kitagawa
Children	3
Military career
Allegiance	Empire of Japan
Branch	Imperial Japanese Army Air Service
Service years	1940–1945
Rank	Sergeant
Unit	Aerial Photography
Conflicts	World War II
Signature
Website	mifuneproductions.co.jp

Toshiro Mifune (三船 敏郎, Mifune Toshirō; 1 April 1920 – 24 December 1997) was a Japanese actor and producer. The recipient of numerous awards and accolades over a lengthy career, he is widely considered one of the greatest actors of all time. Noted for his commanding screen presence in the Japanese film industry, he typically played hypermasculine or heroic characters.

Although he amassed more than 180 screen credits, Mifune is best known for his 16 collaborations with director Akira Kurosawa. These collaborations included Kurosawa's critically acclaimed jidaigeki films such as Rashomon (1950), for which Mifune won the San Marco Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), The Hidden Fortress (1958), and Yojimbo (1961), for which Mifune won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival and was recognised at the Blue Ribbon Awards as Best Actor. He also portrayed Miyamoto Musashi in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy (1954–1956), Lord Toranaga in the NBC television miniseries Shōgun, and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in three different films.

In 1962, he established Mifune Productions, achieving success with large-scale works including The Sands of Kurobe (1968) and Samurai Banners (1969). He also starred in his directorial debut Legacy of the 500,000 (1963). Following his performance in the 1965 film Red Beard, which won him the Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for a second time, Mifune turned to roles abroad. He starred in films such as Ánimas Trujano (1962), for which he won another Blue Ribbon Award for Best Actor, Grand Prix (1966), which was his Hollywood debut, Hell in the Pacific (1968), Red Sun (1971), Paper Tiger (1975), Midway (1976), and Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979).

Mifune died of organ failure on 24 December 1997. In 1999, he was inducted into the Martial Arts History Museum Hall of Fame. He is the subject of the feature-length documentary, Mifune: The Last Samurai (2015), about his life and his films. In 2016, his name was inscribed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Early life

Mifune in 1939

Toshiro Mifune was born on 1 April 1920, in Seitō, Japanese-occupied Shandong (present-day Qingdao, China), the eldest son of Tokuzo and Sen Mifune. His father Tokuzo was a trade merchant and photographer who ran a photography business in Qingdao and Yingkou, and the son of a physician from Kawauchi, Akita Prefecture. His mother Sen was the daughter of a hatamoto, a high-ranking samurai official. Toshiro's parents, who were working as Methodist missionaries, were some of the Japanese citizens encouraged to live in Shandong by the Japanese government during its occupation before the Republic of China took over the city in 1922. Mifune grew up with his parents and two younger siblings in Dalian, Fengtian from the age of 4 to 19.

In his youth, Mifune worked at his father's photo studio. After spending the first 19 years of his life in China, as a Japanese citizen, he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army Aviation division, where he served in the Aerial Photography unit during World War II.

Career

Early work

In 1947, a large number of Toho Productions actors, after a prolonged strike, had left to form their own company, Shin Toho. Toho then organized a "new faces" contest to find new talent.

Nenji Oyama, a friend of Mifune's who worked for the Photography Department of Toho, sent Mifune's resume to the New Faces audition as the Photography Department was full, telling Mifune he could later transfer to the Photography Department if he wished. He was accepted, along with 48 others (out of roughly 4,000 applicants), and allowed to take a screen test for Kajirō Yamamoto. Instructed to mime anger, he drew from his wartime experiences. Yamamoto took a liking to Mifune, recommending him to director Senkichi Taniguchi. This led to Mifune's first feature role, in Shin Baka Jidai.

Mifune first encountered director Akira Kurosawa when Toho Studios, the largest film production company in Japan, was conducting a massive talent search, during which hundreds of aspiring actors auditioned before a team of judges. Kurosawa was originally going to skip the event, but showed up when Hideko Takamine told him of one actor who seemed especially promising. Kurosawa later wrote that he entered the audition to see "a young man reeling around the room in a violent frenzy ... it was as frightening as watching a wounded beast trying to break loose. I was transfixed." When Mifune, exhausted, finished his scene, he sat down and gave the judges an ominous stare. He lost the competition but Kurosawa was impressed. "I am a person rarely impressed by actors," he later said. "But in the case of Mifune I was completely overwhelmed." Mifune immersed himself into the six-month training and diligently applied himself to studying acting, although at first he still hoped to be transferred to the camera department.

1950s–1990s

Mifune in Seven Samurai (1954)

His imposing bearing, acting range, facility with foreign languages and lengthy partnership with acclaimed director Akira Kurosawa made him the most famous Japanese actor of his time, and easily the best known to Western audiences. He often portrayed samurai or rōnin who were usually coarse and gruff (Kurosawa once explained that the only weakness he could find with Mifune and his acting ability was his "rough" voice), inverting the popular stereotype of the genteel, clean-cut samurai. In such films as Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, he played characters who were often comically lacking in manners, but replete with practical wisdom and experience, understated nobility, and, in the case of Yojimbo, unmatched fighting prowess. Sanjuro in particular contrasts this earthy warrior spirit with the useless, sheltered propriety of the court samurai. Kurosawa valued Mifune highly for his effortless portrayal of unvarnished emotion, once commenting that he could convey in only three feet of film an emotion for which the average Japanese actor would require ten feet. He starred in all three films of Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy (1954–1956), for which the first film in Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto was awarded an Honorary Academy Award. Mifune and Inagaki worked together on twenty films, which outnumbered his collaborations with Kurosawa, with all but two falling into the jidaigeki genre, most notably with Rickshaw Man (1958), which won the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion.

From left to right: Antonio Aguilar, Toshiro Mifune, and Flor Silvestre in Animas Trujano (1964)

He was also known for the effort he put into his performances. To prepare for Seven Samurai and Rashomon, Mifune reportedly studied footage of lions in the wild. For the Mexican film Ánimas Trujano, he studied tapes of Mexican actors speaking so that he could recite all of his lines in Spanish. Many Mexicans believed that Toshiro Mifune could have passed for a native of Oaxaca due to his critically acclaimed performance. When asked why he chose Mexico to do his next film, Mifune quoted, "Simply because, first of all, Mr. Ismael Rodríguez convinced me; secondly, because I was eager to work in beautiful Mexico, of great tradition; and thirdly, because the story and character of 'Animas Trujano' seemed very human to me". The film was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Mifune gave a Japanese pistol as a gift to then-Mexican president Adolfo López Mateos when they met in Oaxaca.

Mifune has been credited as originating the "roving warrior" archetype, which he perfected during his collaboration with Kurosawa. His martial arts instructor was Yoshio Sugino of the Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū. Sugino created the fight choreography for films such as Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, and Kurosawa instructed his actors to emulate his movements and bearing.

Mifune in Hell in the Pacific (1968)

Clint Eastwood was among the first of many actors to adopt this wandering ronin with no name persona for foreign films, which he used to great effect in his Western roles, especially in Spaghetti Westerns directed by Sergio Leone where he played the Man with No Name, a character similar to Mifune's seemingly-nameless rōnin in Yojimbo.

Mifune may also be credited with originating the yakuza archetype, with his performance as a mobster in Kurosawa's Drunken Angel (1948), the first yakuza film. Most of the sixteen Kurosawa–Mifune films are considered cinema classics. These include Drunken Angel, Stray Dog, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, High and Low, Throne of Blood (an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth), Yojimbo, and Sanjuro.

Mifune and Kurosawa finally parted ways after Red Beard. Several factors contributed to the rift that ended this career-spanning collaboration. Mifune had a passion for film in his own right and had long wanted to set up a production company, working towards going freelance. Kurosawa and Taniguchi advised against it out of concern they would not be able to cast Mifune as freely. Most of Mifune's contemporaries acted in several different movies in this period. Since Red Beard required Mifune to grow a natural beard — one he had to keep for the entirety of the film's two years of shooting — he was unable to act in any other films during the production. This put Mifune and his financially strapped production company deeply into debt, creating friction between him and Kurosawa. Although Red Beard played to packed houses in Japan and Europe, which helped Mifune recoup some of his losses, the ensuing years held varying outcomes for both Mifune and Kurosawa. After the film's release, the careers of each man took different arcs: Mifune continued to enjoy success with a range of samurai and war-themed films (Rebellion, Samurai Assassin, The Emperor and a General, among others). In contrast, Kurosawa's output of films dwindled and drew mixed responses. During this time, Kurosawa attempted suicide. In 1980, Mifune experienced popularity with mainstream American audiences through his role as Lord Toranaga in the television miniseries Shogun, which Kurosawa criticised for its historical inaccuracy. Mifune spoke respectfully of Kurosawa and loyally attended the premiere of Kagemusha.

Mifune turned down an opportunity from United Artists to play the Japanese spy chief Tiger Tanaka in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967). According to his daughter, he also turned down an offer from George Lucas to play either Darth Vader or Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars (1977). Mifune was considered for the role of Spock's nemesis in the unproduced Star Trek film Star Trek: Planet of the Titans.

Mifune himself was always professional, memorizing all of his lines and not carrying scripts on set. He was seen as unusually humble for an international star, and was known for treating his co-stars and crew generously, throwing catered parties for them and paying for their families to go to onsen resorts. When American actor Scott Glenn was asked about his experience of filming The Challenge (1982) alongside Mifune, Glenn recalled disappointment that the original script (about "a surrogate father and son finding each other from completely different cultures") lost its "character-driven scenes" and was reduced to "a martial arts movie" but stated, "...I remember Mifune came to me, and he said, "Look, this is what's happening. I'm disappointed, and I know you are, but this is what it is. So you can either have your heart broken every day, or you can use this experience as an opportunity to be spending time in the most interesting time in Japan and let me be your tour guide." So it wound up with me learning an awful lot of stuff from Toshirô."

In 1979, Mifune joined the ensemble cast of the Steven Spielberg war comedy 1941 as the commander of a lost Imperial Japanese Navy submarine searching for Hollywood shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack. Mifune received wide acclaim in the West after playing Toranaga in the 1980 TV miniseries Shogun. However, the series' blunt portrayal of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the greatly abridged version shown in Japan meant that it was not as well received in his homeland.

The relationship between Kurosawa and Mifune remained ambivalent. Kurosawa criticized Mifune's acting in Interview magazine and also said that "All the films that I made with Mifune, without him, they would not exist". He also presented Mifune with the Kawashita award which he himself had won two years prior. They frequently encountered each other professionally and met again in 1993 at the funeral of their friend Ishirō Honda, but never collaborated again.

Personal life

Among Mifune's fellow performers, one of the 32 women chosen during the new faces contest was Sachiko Yoshimine. Eight years Mifune's junior, she came from a respected Tokyo family. They fell in love and Mifune soon proposed marriage.

Director Senkichi Taniguchi, with the help of Akira Kurosawa, convinced the Yoshimine family to allow the marriage. The wedding took place in February 1950 at the Aoyama Gakuin Methodist Church. Yoshimine was a Buddhist but since Mifune was a Christian, they were married in church as per Christian tradition.

In November of the same year, their first son, Shirō was born. In 1955, they had a second son, Takeshi. Mifune's daughter Mika was born to his mistress, actress Mika Kitagawa, in 1982.

The Mifune family tomb in Kawasaki, Kanagawa

Death

On 24 December 1997, he died in Mitaka, Tokyo, of multiple organ failure at the age of 77.

Honors

Mifune won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor twice, in 1961 and 1965. He was awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in 1986 and the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1993. In 1973, he was a member of the jury at the 8th Moscow International Film Festival. In 1977, he was a member of the jury at the 10th Moscow International Film Festival.

On 14 November 2016, Mifune received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in the motion picture industry.

Personal quotations

Of Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune said, "I have never as an actor done anything that I am proud of other than with him".

Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world. It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three. The speed of his movements was such that he said in a single action what took ordinary actors three separate movements to express. He put forth everything directly and boldly, and his sense of timing was the keenest I had ever seen in a Japanese actor. And yet with all his quickness, he also had surprisingly fine sensibilities.

— Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography

"Since I came into the industry very inexperienced, I don't have any theory of acting. I just had to play my roles my way."

"Generally speaking, most East–West stories have been a series of cliches. I, for one, have no desire to retell Madame Butterfly."

"An actor is not a puppet with strings pulled by the director. He is a human being with seeds of all emotions, desires, and needs within himself. I attempt to find the very center of this humanity and explore and experiment."

Legacy

Of Toshiro Mifune, in his 1991 book Cult Movie Stars, Danny Peary wrote,

Vastly talented, charismatic, and imposing (because of his strong voice and physique), the star of most of Akira Kurosawa's classics became the first Japanese actor since Sessue Hayakawa to have international fame. But where Hayakawa became a sex symbol because he was romantic, exotic, and suavely charming (even when playing lecherous villains), Mifune's sex appeal – and appeal to male viewers – was due to his sheer unrefined and uninhibited masculinity. He was attractive even when he was unshaven and unwashed, drunk, wide-eyed, and openly scratching himself all over his sweaty body, as if he were a flea-infested dog. He did indeed have animal magnetism – in fact, he based his wild, growling, scratching, superhyper Samurai recruit in The Seven Samurai on a lion. It shouldn't be forgotten that Mifune was terrific in Kurosawa's contemporary social dramas, as detectives or doctors, wearing suits and ties, but he will always be remembered for his violent and fearless, funny, morally ambivalent samurai heroes for Kurosawa, as well as in Hiroshi Inagaki's classic epic, The Samurai Trilogy.

Peary also wrote,

Amazingly physical, [Mifune] was a supreme action hero whose bloody, ritualistic, and, ironically, sometimes comical sword-fight sequences in Yojimbo and Sanjuro are classics, as well-choreographed as the greatest movie dances. His nameless sword-for-hire anticipated Clint Eastwood's 'Man With No Name' gunfighter. With his intelligence, eyes seemingly in back of his head, and experience evident in every thrust or slice, he has no trouble – and no pity – dispatching twenty opponents at a time (Bruce Lee must have been watching!). It is a testament to his skills as an actor that watching the incredible swordplay does not thrill us any more than watching his face during the battle or just the way he moves, without a trace of panic, across the screen – for no one walks or races with more authority, arrogance, or grace than Mifune's barefoot warriors. For a 20-year period, there was no greater actor – dynamic or action – than Toshiro Mifune. Just look at his credits.

In an article published in 2020 by The Criterion Collection in commemoration of the centenary of Mifune's birth, Moeko Fujii wrote,

For most of the past century, when people thought of a Japanese man, they saw Toshiro Mifune. A samurai, in the world's eyes, has Mifune's fast wrists, his scruff, his sidelong squint... He may have played warriors, but they weren't typical heroes: they threw tantrums and fits, accidentally slipped off mangy horses, yawned, scratched, chortled, and lazed. But when he extended his right arm, quick and low with a blade, he somehow summoned the tone of epics.

There's a tendency to make Mifune sound mythical. The leading man of Kurosawa-gumi, the Emperor's coterie, he would cement his superstar status in over 150 films in his lifetime, acting for other famed directors — Hiroshi Inagaki, Kajiro Yamamoto, Kihachi Okamoto — in roles ranging from a caped lover to a Mexican bandit.

Mifune's life on-screen centers solely around men. Women, when they do appear, feel arbitrary, mythical, temporary: it's clear that no one is really invested in the thrums of heterosexual desire... Toshiro Mifune cemented his reputation as an icon of masculinity right alongside Hollywood narratives of neutered Asian manhood. In 1961, Mifune provoked worldwide longing by swaggering around in Yojimbo, the same year that Mickey Rooney played the bucktoothed Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Looks-wise, he's the opposite of his predecessor, the silent film star Sessue Hayakawa — often christened the "first Hollywood sex symbol" — with his long, slim fingers and Yves Saint Laurent polish. But Mifune represents a development beyond Hayakawa's Japanese-man-on-screen, who, despite his huge white female fanbase, was always limited to roles of the "Oriental" villain, the menace, the impossible romantic lead: in 1957, Joe Franklin would tell Hayakawa in his talk show, "There were two things we were sure of in the silent movie era; the Indians never got the best of it, and Sessue Hayakawa never got the girl."

Mifune never wants the girl in the first place. So the men around him can't help but watch him a little open-mouthed, as he walks his slice of world, amused by and nonchalant about the stupor he leaves in his wake. "Who is he?," someone asks, and no one ever has a good answer. You can't help but want to walk alongside him, to figure it out.

Filmography

Mifune appeared in roughly 170 feature films. In 2015, Steven Okazaki released Mifune: The Last Samurai, a documentary chronicling Mifune's life and career. Due to variations in translation from the Japanese and other factors, there are multiple titles to many of Mifune's films (see IMDb link). The titles shown here are the most common ones used in the United States, with the original Japanese title listed below it in parentheses. Mifune's filmography mainly consists of Japanese productions, unless noted otherwise (see Notes column).

Films

Year	Title	Role	Director	Notes
1947	Snow Trail (銀嶺の果て)	Ejima	Senkichi Taniguchi
	These Foolish Times (新馬鹿時代 前篇)	Genzaburō Ōno	Kajirō Yamamoto
	These Foolish Times Part 2 (新馬鹿時代 後篇)	Genzaburō Ōno	Kajirō Yamamoto
1948	Drunken Angel (醉いどれ天使)	Matsunaga	Akira Kurosawa
1949	The Quiet Duel (静かなる決闘)	Kyōji Fujisaki	Akira Kurosawa
	Jakoman and Tetsu (ジャコ萬と鉄)	Tetsu	Senkichi Taniguchi
	Stray Dog (野良犬)	Detective Murakami	Akira Kurosawa
1950	Conduct Report on Professor Ishinaka (石中先生行状記)	Teisaku Nagasawa	Mikio Naruse
	Scandal (醜聞)	Ichirō Aoe	Akira Kurosawa
	Engagement Ring (婚約指環)	Takeshi Ema	Keisuke Kinoshita
	Rashomon (羅生門)	Tajōmaru	Akira Kurosawa
	Escape from Prison (脱獄)	Shinkichi	Kajirō Yamamoto
1951	Beyond Love and Hate (愛と憎しみの彼方へ)	Gorō Sakata	Senkichi Taniguchi
	Elegy (悲歌)	Prosecutor Daisuke Toki	Kajirō Yamamoto
	The Idiot (白痴)	Denkichi Akama	Akira Kurosawa
	Pirates (海賊船)	Tora	Hiroshi Inagaki
	Meeting of the Ghost Après-Guerre (戦後派お化け大会)	Kenji Kawakami	Kiyoshi Saeki	Special appearance
	Conclusion of Kojiro Sasaki: Duel at Ganryu Island (完結 佐々木小次郎 巌流島決闘)	Musashi Miyamoto	Hiroshi Inagaki
	The Life of a Horsetrader (馬喰一代)	Yonetarō Katayama	Keigo Kimura
	Who Knows a Woman's Heart (女ごころ誰が知る)	Mizuno	Kajirō Yamamoto
1952	Vendetta for a Samurai (荒木又右衛門 決闘鍵屋の辻)	Mataemon Araki	Kazuo Mori
	Foghorn (霧笛)	Chiyokichi	Senkichi Taniguchi
	The Life of Oharu (西鶴一代女)	Katsunosuke	Kenji Mizoguchi
	Golden Girl (金の卵)		Yasuki Chiba	Supporting role
	Sword for Hire (戦国無頼)	Hayatenosuke Sasa	Hiroshi Inagaki
	Tokyo Sweetheart (東京の恋人)	Kurokawa	Yasuki Chiba
	Swift Current (激流)	Shunsuke Kosugi	Senkichi Taniguchi
	The Man Who Came to Port (港へ来た男)	Gorō Niinuma	Ishirō Honda
1953	My Wonderful Yellow Car (吹けよ春風)	Matsumura	Senkichi Taniguchi
	The Last Embrace (抱擁)	Shinkichi/Hayakawa	Masahiro Makino
	Sunflower Girl (ひまわり娘)	Ippei Hitachi	Yasuki Chiba	Originally released overseas as Love in a Teacup
	Eagle of the Pacific (太平洋の鷲)	Lieutenant Jōichi Tomonaga	Ishirō Honda
1954	Seven Samurai (七人の侍)	Kikuchiyo	Akira Kurosawa
	The Sound of Waves (潮騒)	Skipper of the Utashima-maru	Senkichi Taniguchi
	Samurai I : Musashi Miyamoto (宮本武蔵)	Musashi Miyamoto (Takezō Shinmen)	Hiroshi Inagaki
	The Black Fury (密輸船)	Eiichi Tsuda	Toshio Sugie
1955	The Merciless Boss: A Man Among Men (顔役無用 男性No．1)	"Buick" Maki	Kajirō Yamamoto
	All Is Well (天下泰平)	Daikichi Risshun	Toshio Sugie
	All Is Well Part 2 (続天下泰平)	Daikichi Risshun	Toshio Sugie
	No Time for Tears (男ありて)	Mitsuo Yano	Seiji Maruyama
	Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (続宮本武蔵 一乗寺の決斗)	Musashi Miyamoto	Hiroshi Inagaki
	I Live in Fear (生きものの記録)	Kiichi Nakajima	Akira Kurosawa
1956	Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (宮本武蔵 完結篇 決闘巌流島)	Musashi Miyamoto	Hiroshi Inagaki
	Rainy Night Duel (黒帯三国志)	Masahiko Koseki	Senkichi Taniguchi
	The Underworld (暗黒街)	Chief Inspector Kumada	Kajirō Yamamoto
	Settlement of Love (愛情の決算)	Shuntarō Ōhira	Shin Saburi
	A Wife's Heart (妻の心)	Kenkichi Takemura	Mikio Naruse
	Scoundrel (ならず者)	Kanji	Nobuo Aoyagi
	Rebels on the High Seas (囚人船)	Tokuzō Matsuo	Hiroshi Inagaki
1957	Throne of Blood (蜘蛛巣城)	Taketoki Washizu	Akira Kurosawa
	A Man in the Storm (嵐の中の男)	Saburō Watari	Senkichi Taniguchi
	Be Happy, These Two Lovers (この二人に幸あれ)	Toshio Maruyama	Ishirō Honda
	Yagyu Secret Scrolls Part 1 (柳生武芸帳)	Tasaburō Kasumi	Hiroshi Inagaki
	A Dangerous Hero (危険な英雄)	Athlete Kawada	Hideo Suzuki
	The Lower Depths (どん底)	Sutekichi	Akira Kurosawa
	Downtown (下町)	Yoshio Tsuruishi	Yasuki Chiba
1958	Yagyu Secret Scrolls Part 2 (柳生武芸帳 双龍秘剣)	Tasaburō Ōtsuki	Hiroshi Inagaki
	Holiday in Tokyo (東京の休日)	Jirō	Kajirō Yamamoto
	Muhomatsu, The Rikshaw Man (無法松の一生)	Matsugorō Tomishima	Hiroshi Inagaki
	Yaji and Kita on the Road (弥次喜多道中記)	Toshinoshin Taya	Yasuki Chiba
	All About Marriage (結婚のすべて)	Acting Teacher	Kihachi Okamoto	Cameo
	Theater of Life (人生劇場 青春篇)	Hishakaku	Toshio Sugie
	The Hidden Fortress (隠し砦の三悪人)	General Rokurota Makabe	Akira Kurosaw
1959	Boss of the Underworld (暗黒街の顔役)	Daisuke Kashimura	Kihachi Okamoto
	Samurai Saga (或る剣豪の生涯)	Heihachirō Komaki	Hiroshi Inagaki
	The Saga of the Vagabonds (戦国群盗伝)	Rokurō Kai	Toshio Sugie
	Desperado Outpost (独立愚連隊)	Battalion Commander Kodama	Kihachi Okamoto
	The Three Treasures (日本誕生)	Yamato Takeru/Susanoo-no-Mikoto	Hiroshi Inagaki
1960	The Last Gunfight (暗黒街の対決)	Detective Saburō Fujioka	Kihachi Okamoto
	The Gambling Samurai (国定忠治)	Kunisada Chūji	Senkichi Taniguchi
	Storm Over the Pacific (ハワイ·ミッドウェイ大海空戦 太平洋の嵐)	Tamon Yamaguchi	Shūe Matsubayashi
	Man Against Man (男対男)	Kaji	Senkichi Taniguchi
	The Bad Sleep Well (悪い奴ほどよく眠る)	Kōichi Nishi	Akira Kurosawa
	Salaryman Chushingura Part 1 (サラリーマン忠臣蔵)	Kazuo Momoi	Toshio Sugie
1961	The Story of Osaka Castle (大坂城物語)	Mohei	Hiroshi Inagaki
	Salaryman Chushingura Part 2 (続サラリーマン忠臣蔵)	Kazuo Momoi	Toshio Sugie
	Yojimbo (用心棒)	Sanjūrō Kuwabata	Akira Kurosawa
	The Youth and his Amulet (ゲンと不動明王)	Fudō Myō-ō	Hiroshi Inagaki
	Ánimas Trujano	Ánimas Trujano	Ismael Rodríguez	Mexican production
1962	Sanjuro (椿三十郎)	Sanjūrō Tsubaki	Akira Kurosawa
	Tatsu (どぶろくの辰)	Tatsu	Hiroshi Inagaki
	Three Gentlemen Return from Hong Kong (続·社長洋行記)	Cho Chishō	Toshio Sugie	Cameo
	Chushingura: Story of Flower, Story of Snow (忠臣蔵 花の巻·雪の巻)	Genba Tawaraboshi	Hiroshi Inagaki
1963	Attack Squadron! (太平洋の翼)	Lt. Colonel Senda	Shūe Matsubayashi
	High and Low (天国と地獄)	Kingo Gondō	Akira Kurosawa
	Legacy of the 500,000 (五十万人の遺産)	Takeichi Matsuo	Toshiro Mifune	Also Director and Producer
	Samurai Pirate (大盗賊)	Sukezaemon Naya/Sinbad	Senkichi Taniguchi	Release in the U.S. as The Lost World of Sinbad
1964	Whirlwind (士魂魔道 大龍巻)	Akashi Takenori	Hiroshi Inagaki
1965	Samurai Assassin (侍)	Tsuruchiyo Niiro	Kihachi Okamoto
	Red Beard (赤ひげ)	Dr. Kyojō Niide	Akira Kurosawa
	Sanshiro Sugata (姿三四郎)	Shōgorō Yano	Seiichirô Uchikawa
	The Retreat from Kiska (太平洋奇跡の作戦 キスカ)	Major General Omura	Seiji Maruyama
	Fort Graveyard (血と砂)	Sergeant Kosugi	Kihachi Okamoto	Also Producer
1966	Rise Against the Sword (暴れ豪右衛門)	Shinobu no Gōemon	Hiroshi Inagaki
	The Sword of Doom (大菩薩峠)	Toranosuke Shimada	Kihachi Okamoto
	The Adventure of Kigan Castle (奇巌城の冒険)	Ōsumi	Senkichi Taniguchi	Also producer
	The Mad Atlantic (怒涛一万浬)	Heihachirō Murakami	Jun Fukuda	Also Executive Producer
	Grand Prix	Izō Yamura	John Frankenheimer	U.S. production
1967	Samurai Rebellion (上意討ち 拝領妻始末)	Isaburō Sasahara	Masaki Kobayashi	Also Producer
	Japan's Longest Day (日本のいちばん長い日)	Korechika Anami	Kihachi Okamoto
1968	The Sands of Kurobe (黒部の太陽)	Satoshi Kitagawa	Kei Kumai
	Admiral Yamamoto (連合艦隊司令長官 山本五十六)	Isoroku Yamamoto	Seiji Maruyama
	The Day the Sun Rose (祇園祭)	Kumaza	Daisuke Itō and Tetsuya Yamanouchi
	Hell in the Pacific	Captain Tsuruhiko Kuroda	John Boorman	U.S. production
1969	Samurai Banners (風林火山)	Yamamoto Kansuke	Hiroshi Inagaki	Also producer
	Safari 5000 (栄光への5000キロ)	Yūichirō Takase	Koreyoshi Kurahara
	The Battle of the Japan Sea (日本海大海戦)	Tōgō Heihachirō	Seiji Maruyama
	Red Lion (赤毛)	Akage no Gonzō	Kihachi Okamoto	Also Producer
	Shinsengumi (新選組)	Kondō Isami	Tadashi Sawashima	also Producer
1970	Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (座頭市と用心棒)	Daisaku Sasa	Kihachi Okamoto
	Bakumatsu (幕末)	Gotō Shōjirō	Daisuke Itō
	Incident at Blood Pass (待ち伏せ)	Tōzaburō Shinogi	Hiroshi Inagaki	also Producer
	The Walking Major (ある兵士の賭け)	Tadao Kinugasa	Keith Larsen
	The Militarists (激動の昭和史 軍閥)	Isoroku Yamamoto	Hiromichi Horikawa
1971	Red Sun	Jūbei Kuroda	Terence Young	French. Italian, and Spanish co-production
	Morning for Two 二人だけの朝	N/A	Takeshi Matsumori	Producer
1975	Paper Tiger	Ambassador Kagoyama	Ken Annakin	U.K. production
	The New Spartans	WW2 vet	Jack Starrett	U.K., West German co-production; Incomplete
1976	Midway	Isoroku Yamamoto	Jack Smight	U.S. production Voice dubbed by Paul Frees
1977	Proof of the Man (人間の証明)	Yōhei Kōri	Junya Satō	Special appearance
	Japanese Godfather: Ambition (日本の首領 野望篇)	Kōsuke Ōishi	Sadao Nakajima
1978	Shogun's Samurai (柳生一族の陰謀)	Tokugawa Yoshinao	Kinji Fukasaku
	Shag (犬笛)	Captain Takeo Murata	Sadao Nakajima	Also Executive Producer
	Ogin-sama (お吟さま)	Toyotomi Hideyoshi	Kei Kumai
	The Fall of Ako Castle (赤穂城断絶)	Chikara Tsuchiya	Kinji Fukasaku
	Japanese Godfather: Conclusion (日本の首領 完結篇)	Kōsuke Ōishi	Sadao Nakajima
	Lord Incognito (水戸黄門)	Sakuzaemon Okumura	Tetsuya Yamanouchi
1979	Winter Kills	Keith	William Richert	U.S. production
	The Adventures of Kosuke Kindaichi (金田一耕助の冒険)	Kindaichi Kosuke	Nobuhiko Obayashi
	Onmitsu Doshin: The Edo Secret Police (隠密同心·大江戸捜査網)	Matsudaira Sadanobu	Akinori Matsuo	Also Producer
	1941	Commander Akiro Mitamura	Steven Spielberg	U.S. production
1980	The Battle of Port Arthur (二百三高地)	Emperor Meiji	Toshio Masuda
	Shogun (将軍 SHOGUN)	Toranaga Yoshii	Jerry London	U.S., Japanese co-production
1981	Inchon!	Saitō-san	Terence Young	U.S. production
	Bushido Blade	Commander Hayashi Akira	Tsugunobu Kotani	U.S., U.K., Japanese co-production
1982	The Challenge	Toru Yoshida	John Frankenheimer	U.S. production
	Conquest (制覇)	Masao Tadokoro	Sadao Nakajima
1983	Battle Anthem (日本海大海戦 海ゆかば)	Heihachirō Tōgō	Toshio Masuda
	Theater of Life (人生劇場)	Hyōtarō Aonari	Junya Satō, Sadao Nakajima, and Kinji Fukasaku	Special appearance
1984	The Miracle of Joe Petrel (海燕ジョーの奇跡)	Fisherman	Toshiya Fujita
1985	Legend of the Holy Woman (聖女伝説)	Kōzō Kanzaki	Tōru Murakawa	Special appearance
1986	Song of the Genkai Sea (玄海つれづれ節)	Kyūbei Matsufuji	Masanobu Deme
1987	Shatterer	Murai	Tonino Valerii	Italian, Japanese co-production
	Tora-san Goes North (男はつらいよ 知床慕情)	Junkichi Ueno	Yoji Yamada
	Princess from the Moon (竹取物語)	Taketori-no-Miyatsuko	Kon Ichikawa
1989	Death of a Tea Master (千利休 本覺坊遺文)	Sen no Rikyū	Kei Kumai
	The Demon Comes in Spring (春来る鬼)	Kukkune no jî	Akira Kobayashi
	CF Girl (CFガール)	Shūichirō Hase	Izo Hashimoto
1991	Strawberry Road (ストロベリーロード)	Taoka	Koreyoshi Kurahara
	Journey of Honor (兜 KABUTO)	Tokugawa Ieyasu	Gordon Hessler	U.S., U.K., Japanese co-production
1992	Shadow of the Wolf	Kroomak	Jacques Dorfmann and Pierre Magny	Canadian, French co-production
1994	Picture Bride	The Benshi	Kayo Hatta	U.S. production
1995	Deep River (深い河)	Tsukada	Kei Kumai	Final film role

The 1999 Danish film Mifune is named after the actor.

Television

All programs originally aired in Japan except for Shōgun which aired in the U.S. on NBC in September 1980 before being subsequently broadcast in Japan on TV Asahi from 30 March to 6 April 1981.

Date(s)	Title	Role	Notes
1967.05.11	He of the Sun (太陽のあいつ)	Himself	1 episode
1968–1969	Five Freelance Samurai (五人の野武士)	Jirō Yoshikage Funayama	6 episodes [Ep. 1,2,14,15,17,26]
1971	Daichūshingura (大忠臣蔵)	Kuranosuke Ōishi	All 52 episodes
1972–1974	Ronin of the Wilderness (荒野の素浪人)	Kujūrō Tōge	All 104 episodes, over two seasons; also producer
1973	Yojimbo of the Wilderness (荒野の用心棒)	Kujūrō Tōge	5 episodes
1975	The Sword, the Wind, and the Lullaby (剣と風と子守唄)	Jūzaburō Toride	All 27 episodes
1976	The Secret Inspectors (隠し目付参上)	Naizen-no-shō Tsukumo/Izu-no-kami Nobuakira Matsudaira	10 episodes [Ep. 1,2,3,4,7,10,11,18,22,26]
1976	Ronin in a Lawless Town (人魚亭異聞 無法街の素浪人)	Mr. Danna	All 23 episodes
1977.07.16	Ōedo Sōsamō (大江戸捜査網)	Yūgen Ōtaki	1 episode
1978	Falcons of Edo (江戸の鷹 御用部屋犯科帖)	Kanbei Uchiyama	All 38 episodes
1979.04.02	Edo o Kiru IV (江戸を斬るIV)	Chiba Shusaku Narimasa	1 episode special appearance [Ep. 8]
1979	Prosecutor Saburo Kirishima (検事霧島三郎)	Chief Prosecutor Mori
1979	Akō Rōshi (赤穂浪士)	Sakon Tachibana	1 episode
1979–1980	Fangs of Edo (江戸の牙)	Gunbei Asahina	3 episodes [Ep. 1, 17, 26]
1979	Hideout in Room 7 (駆け込みビル7号室)	Gōsuke Saegusa
1980	Shōgun	Toranaga Yoshii	All 5 parts
1980.12.27	It's 8 O'Clock! Everybody Gather 'Round (8時だョ!全員集合)	Himself	1 episode
1981	Sekigahara (関ヶ原)	Sakon Shima	All 3 parts
1981–1982	Ten Duels of Young Shingo (新吾十番勝負)	Tamon Umei	Two of three parts [Parts 1,2]
1981.07.09	My Daughter! Fly on the Wings of Love and Tears (娘よ！ 愛と涙の翼で翔べ)		TV film
1981.09.29	Tuesday Suspense Theater: The Spherical Wilderness (火曜サスペンス劇場 球形の荒野)	Kenichirō Nogami	TV film
1981–1982	Bungo Detective Story (文吾捕物帳)	Shūsaku Chiba	5 episodes [Ep. 5,10,13,18,26]
1981–1983	The Lowly Ronin (素浪人罷り通る)	Shūtō Shunka	TV film series, all 6 parts
1982.09.19	The Happy Yellow Handkerchief (幸福の黄色いハンカチ)	Kenzō Shima	1 episode [Ep. 4]
1983	The Brave Man Says Little (勇者は語らず いま、日米自動車戦争は)	Ryūzō Kawana	All 4 episodes
1983.11.03	The Women of Osaka Castle (女たちの大坂城)	Tokugawa Ieyasu	TV film
1983.11.10	The Secret of Cruel Valley (魔境 殺生谷の秘密)	Lowly Rōnin	TV film
1984	The Burning Mountain River (山河燃ゆ)	Otoshichi Amō
1984.04.02	Okita Soji: Swordsman of Fire (燃えて、散る 炎の剣士 沖田総司)	Shūsai Kondō	TV film
1984.08.26	Toshiba Sunday Theater #1442: Summer Encounter (東芝日曜劇場 第1442回 夏の出逢い)	Takeya Ōnuki	TV film
1987.09.10	Masterpiece Jidaigeki: National Advisor Breakthrough! Hikozaemon Geki (傑作時代劇 天下の御意見番罷り通る！彦左衛門外記)	Ōkubo Tadataka	1 episode [Ep. 21]
1990.04.20	Heaven and Earth: Dawn Episode (天と地と～黎明編)	Nagao Tamekage	TV film

Awards and nominations

Mifune won and was nominated for many awards during his acting career, including six Blue Ribbon Awards, three Mainichi Film Awards, three Japan Academy Film Prize nominations (winning two), and two Kinema Junpo Awards.

References

Sources

• Galbraith, Stuart IV (2002). The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune (1st ed.). London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-19982-2.
• Ryfle, Steve; Godziszewski, Ed (2017). Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, from Godzilla to Kurosawa. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 9780819570871.

External links

English

• Toshiro Mifune: Biographical details and selected filmography at the British Film Institute
• Toshirô Mifune at IMDb
• Toshiro Mifune interview by Gerald Peary on The Globe and Mail, 6 June 1986

Japanese

• Official website
• Toshiro Mifune at the Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese)