Essays on Akira

Introduction

Akira Kurosawa's Ran is based on the 16th Century play, King Lear, by William Shakespeare. The main plots behind the two works are identical. Besides Ran’s adapted parallel characters like Hidetora, there are theme similarities and differences. In both stories, a leader decides to divide his kingdom among three heirs and a child identifies their father’s undoing in both. The similarities and differences in the plots of the two works underpin major similarities and differences in themes. For example, both works capture the theme of conflict between authority and challenge within the family albeit not exactly in ...

The viewing experience of any one classic film made by director Akira Kurosawa, the influential Japanese filmmaker, can elevate the viewer’s taste for cinema to a whole new level. He had been able to make not merely a couple, but dozens of classic films of high artistic and creative caliber. In an October 06, 1985 interview with Julia Cameron, Akira Kurosawa said that films are something that carry across to many different countries and are seen by many different kinds of people. In this sense, they have a tremendous power of communication (3). His films rarely fall short ...

Psychology Summaries

Solomon, Caren G., Murray B. Stein, and Jitender Sareen. "Generalized Anxiety Disorder." The New England journal of medicine 373.21 (2015): 2059-68. ProQuest. 7 Apr. 2016 .Retrieved fromhttp://search.proquest.com.contentproxy.phoenix.edu/docview/1735349848?pq-origsite=summon Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a condition that creates excessive worry and concern in a debilitating manner for those afflicted with the condition. “According to representative epidemiologic surveys, the estimated prevalence of generalized anxiety disorder in the general population of the United States is 3.1% in the previous year and 5.7% over a patient’s lifetime; the prevalence is approximately twice as high among women as among men” (Solomon, Stein, and ...

Akira Kurosawa’s film The Seven Samurai is as much a commentary on the themes of justice and selflessness as it is about samurai warfare. The primary conflict of the samurai against the raiders they are hired to drive away from the village is that of old-fashioned, underdog honor overcoming the ideals of both ruthless chaos (the raiders) and passive defeat (the villagers). Over the course of the film, all seven samurai find their own reasons for defending the village, overcoming their own pride, naivete and pity to band together as an opposing force and strike a blow for honor and ...