I recently finished Akira Kurosawa's autobiography Something Like An Autobiography. The Chinese title is The Oil of Toads. Kurosawa probably didn't get a chance to decide how to name the foreign versions of his autobiography, but the editor' choice certainly reflect the taste of a culture. The Oil of Toads comes from a Japanese folk tale about a special kind of toad in the mountains in Japan. Those toads are uglier than the usual ones and they have a couple more legs. People catch them and put them in front of a mirror or into a glass tank. Once the toads see from the reflection how ugly they are, they sweat oil all over their body. This oil is a precious medicine used to heal burn wounds. It's said when Kurosawa looked back at his past, he felt like one of those toads, discovering all the awkwardness and unbearableness of himself and sweating oil all over, and the essence of the oil forms this book. I am not sure if the American editor is aware of this story and how Kurosawa compared himself to a fictional toad, but I do think The Oil of Toads might be a little elusive for American readers. Something Like An Autobiography is more direct, simpler, yet still retains a taste of Kurosawa's humbleness, which can be found everywhere in this book. On the notion of hunbleness, the American title and the Chinese one do agree. Personally I prefer The Oil of Toads. It's more intriguing.

I am not an expert on Kurosawa. I have only seen some of the most famous ones. Like many Chinese "cultural youth", my viewing experience of Japanese cinema started with more contemporary filmmakers such as Shunji Iwai and Takeshi Kitano. Films like Kids Return, April Story deeply marked our youthhood. While we received the very much needed sex education in western movies like 91/2 Weeks, we identified our depressed growing pains and emotions with those characters in Japanese movies. As for filmmakers like Nagisa Oshima and Akira Kurosawa that are probably considered national treasure in Japan, I labeled them as antiques from the history of civilization and shelved them for a long time before I could put my hands on them.

Luckily my entrance into Kurosawa's world was a serious one. It was in a theatre theory class for which we all needed to write a paper comparing one stylistic factor among 3 Shakespearean productions. In addition to two theatrical productions, I picked Throne of Blood, which is an adaptation of Macbeth. The stylistic factor I picked was the different portrayal of Lady Macbeth. I studied the film very closely. Although I haven't seen that many adaptation movies of Shakespearean theatre, I stronglyly agree with what's been widely believed that Throne of Blood is the best cinematic adaptation of Shakespear. It is simply one of the best filmes ever made. What amazed me the most is how Kurosawa perfectly combined the Japanese Noh theatre with a western story. Neither did the style of Noh theatre become an obstacle in delivering the story, nor did the story look awkward in a Japanese costume. The more I studied it, the more I was excited about it and the more I believed Kurosawa was a genius.

I love how Kurosawa called making a sequel for any movie is a wait-for-windfalls behavior. Of course, in Chinese it's called "waiting beside a tree for more hares to come". It's such a precise description of its nature and motive and stupidity.