Toshirō Mifune

Born in Qingdao in 1920 and raised in Japan, Mifune was working steadily in film by 1948, when he played the tubercular gangster Matsunaga in Drunken Angel. That began the partnership that defines him: a run of films with Akira Kurosawa stretching from 1948 to 1965, taking in Stray Dog, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo, High and Low and finally Red Beard.

He is remembered for the physical work, and the reputation is earned. Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai is a performance of pure motion, all scratching and shouting and planted hips, a farmer's son impersonating a samurai and giving himself away with every gesture. Tajomaru in Rashomon laughs like an animal in the heat. This is what people mean by commanding screen presence.

The better argument for him is what happens when the sword is taken away. High and Low locks him in a suit in one living room for the whole first half of the film, taking calls from a kidnapper, and he plays the entire crisis with his back and his jaw. The Bad Sleep Well hides fury inside corporate politeness. Red Beard is mostly stillness and moral weight.

Afterwards he was everywhere: Musashi in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai trilogy, a retainer pushed past his limit in Samurai Rebellion, then Hollywood and Europe in Grand Prix, Hell in the Pacific, Red Sun, Midway and 1941, and finally Lord Toranaga in the 1980 television Shogun. He died in 1997, and the 2016 documentary Mifune: The Last Samurai exists because there was that much to account for.