Dersu Uzala (; ; alternative U.S. title: Dersu Uzala: The Hunter) is a 1975 epic biographical film directed and co-written by Akira Kurosawa. Starring Maxim Munzuk and Yury Solomin, the film is based on the 1923 memoir (named for the native trapper Dersu Uzala) by Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev, about his exploration of the Russian Far East over the course of multiple expeditions in the early 20th century. During his exploration, he forms a deep friendship with Dersu as the trapper helps him navigate through the taiga.
Following a series of personal and professional difficulties, Kurosawa was approached by the Soviet Union in 1972 with an offer to produce a film there. A contract with Mosfilm was signed in March 1973, and production began in 1974. The Soviet side of production had requests and stipulations, including a limit to the number of Japanese crew members, but it was agreed that Kurosawa would maintain full artistic control. Shot on 70 mm film, the production of Dersu Uzala experienced difficult conditions, including illness, freezing temperatures, and difficulties filming planned shoots. Filming ended in the Russian Far East in January 1975, after eight months in the wilderness, before wrapping in April of that year in Moscow. The estimated cost of production was .
Dersu Uzala had its premiere at the 9th Moscow International Film Festival in 1975, before being released widely in Japan in August, and the Soviet Union in September. The film's release coincided with Kurosawa beginning to form a public image, as he found himself without an income. Screened in United States in February 1976, the film went on to win Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film before seeing a limited release in December 1977. In the US the film saw a mixed reception. Many scholars and critics, even those who had supported Kurosawa's earlier work, disliked the film. Academic analyses of the film have looked at the characterisation of Dersu and the relationship between nature and civilisation.
Plot In the early 20th century, Captain Arsenyev embarks on a topographic surveying expedition in the Shkotovo region of the Ussuri territory. During the journey, he encounters Dersu Uzala, a nomadic Nanai hunter who impresses him with his exceptional wilderness skills. Dersu agrees to become their guide, leading the expedition through the rugged frontier.
Dersu earns the respect of the group with his experience, instincts, keen observation, and compassion. He showcases his resourcefulness by repairing an abandoned hut and leaving essential provisions for future travelers. As the expedition progresses, Arsenyev and Dersu venture alone to explore Lake Khanka but are caught in a blizzard. Dersu saves Arsenyev’s life by building a shelter and tending to him throughout the night.
The party faces numerous hardships, including fatigue and starvation, but Dersu’s wisdom and skills help them survive. Eventually, they encounter a Chinese family who offers them food, warmth, and hospitality. When the expedition nears its end, Arsenyev invites Dersu to accompany him back to Khabarovsk. However, Dersu, feeling his place is in the forest, declines the offer, asking only for rifle cartridges.
Five years later, Arsenyev embarks on another expedition, hoping to reunite with Dersu. Eventually, they meet again, and Dersu agrees to guide the party once more. During the journey, Arsenyev and Dersu face a perilous situation when they become stranded on a raft heading toward treacherous rapids. Dersu pushes Arsenyev off the raft to safety but remains trapped as the raft is swept toward the rapids. Dersu leaps from the raft and clings to a tree branch, then directs Arsenyev and the others to fell a tree that enables him to reach the riverbank.
As time passes, Dersu senses they are being stalked by a Siberian tiger. He warns the tiger to leave, but eventually shoots and mortally wounds it. Believing that Kanga, the spirit of the forest, will punish him, Dersu becomes increasingly fearful and troubled. Later, his eyesight begins to fail, leaving him unable to hunt reliably and survive alone in the wilderness. Arsenyev invites him to live with his family in Khabarovsk, but Dersu struggles to adapt to city life, feeling confined and out of place. He eventually tells the family he must return to the mountains. Though saddened, Arsenyev understands and gives Dersu a new high-powered rifle to improve his chances of survival.
Later, Arsenyev receives news that the body of an unidentified Nanai hunter has been found and is asked to identify it. He recognises the body as Dersu’s and becomes upset. The official speculates that Dersu may have been killed for the rifle Arsenyev had given him. At Dersu’s burial, Arsenyev plants his walking stick beside the grave as a symbol of remembrance.
Cast Yury Solomin as Vladimir Arsenyev Maxim Munzuk as Dersu Uzala Vladimir Kremena as Turtygin Alexander Pyatkov as Olenev Svetlana Danilchenko as Anna Suimenkul Chokmorov as Chzhan Bao
Production Background
Akira Kurosawa had first thought of adapting Arsenyev's book Dersu Uzala (an autobiography of Arsenyev's time exploring the Russian Far East) during his days as an assistant director. After completing his film The Idiot (1951), he asked to help draft a script. This script adapted the setting to Japan—making Dersu Uzala an Orok native of Hokkaido—but Kurosawa believed the script was uninteresting and that the relocation to Japan did not work well, so the project was abandoned. In 1971, there was interest in Kurosawa shooting a film in the Soviet Union, but it was while Kurosawa later promoted Dodes'ka-den (1970) at the Moscow Film Festival that serious discussions were had regarding a new production. In December of that year, Kurosawa attempted suicide during a difficult period in his career, questioning his creative ability after the commercial failure of Dodes'ka-den and the disastrous production of Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), and the subsequent denial of funds for his productions by Japanese studios. At this time too, Kurosawa was both mentally and physically unwell. The film historian and biographer Donald Richie writes that Kurosawa also had an unhappy domestic life.
Development and pre-production Kurosawa returned to the project of adapting Dersu Uzala in 1972 when the film producer received a communication from the All-Soviet Union of Filmmakers indicating they were committed to a Soviet–Japanese production. Matsue and Kurosawa's script advisor, Teruyo Nogami, flew to Moscow in early 1973 to sign a production agreement stipulating that although it would be a Soviet production, Kurosawa would maintain full artistic control. Nogami states that originally, the Soviet side wanted Toshiro Mifune to be cast in the role of Arsenyev, but Matsue persuaded them that Mifune would not stay in Siberia for a shoot lasting for years. The film scholar Stuart Galbraith IV references Variety articles that indicated that Kurosawa had wanted to work with Mifune again, including claims from the magazine that he may still be cast even after Yury Solomin was hired for the role. Mifune's son later said that Kurosawa asked Mifune to film with him, and while Mifune was eager to, he was struggling financially and could not afford a prolonged shoot. Kurosawa signed a contract with Mosfilm on 14 March 1973; the conglomerate came into the production as an investor in return for distribution rights in Japan.
Kurosawa sent a scenario to the Soviet Union but the Soviet draft written by Yuri Nagibin had changed details to include more action scenes. At a conference in October, it was decided that production would proceed based on Kurosawa's draft. Kurosawa and Nagibin worked together and cut much from Kurosawa's earlier drafts that focused on existential questions of life which Kurosawa wrote after the commercial failure of Dodes'ka-den. There were stipulations made by the Soviet side to limit the number of Japanese crew. In addition to Kurosawa, Nogami, and Matsue, Kurosawa brought his long-time collaborator Asakazu Nakai and two assistant directors: Norio Minoshima, and Tamotsu Kawasaki. Kawasaki was requested by the Soviet side because he was fluent in Russian, but he later left the production in the winter of 1974 due to difficulties between the Japanese and Soviet crew members.
During their time in the Soviet Union, the Japanese crew were closely monitored by state police, but were given access to locations in Primorsky that were usually forbidden for foreigners to visit. Soviet production quotas required a minimum length of film to be shot each day which initially caused friction between Nogami and the Soviet staff, but after comparing the two systems of planning they discovered the schedule was similar. Due to a lack of impressive actors, screen tests for the role of Arsenyev and Dersu were prolonged. Even after Solomin and Munzuk were chosen, screen tests continued to be conducted until they were formally given the role on 1 February 1974.
Filming Filming of Dersu Uzala began in February 1974. The film used . These cameras used film stock at a speed of ASA 40 (according to Nogami, the Japanese industry used film stock at a sensitivity of ASA 100–120). The film stock was low quality and the cameras required three men to move them. This led to issues when locations became too warm or too cold as the film would swell or the cameras would stop working. On the shoot there were five Japanese members and seventy Soviets, with an additional thirty soldiers on work detail. Kurosawa maintained a good relationship with the Soviet crew, with many of them in turn admiring the director and Nakai, the cinematographer. The crew began to move in teams to Siberia, with Kurosawa and Nogami leaving Moscow for Khabarovsk on the 8 May before travelling by train to Arsenyev (named after the film's protagonist). Conditions during production were harsh. When shooting began in the taiga, the crew were beset by the summer heat, mosquitoes, and ticks. Temperatures dropped to minus forty degrees and Kurosawa and Nakai suffered from sickness, with Kurosawa developing frostbite.
During preparations for a night shoot, Kurosawa directed the crew to hose down trees to form icicles and hang bottles from the branches, so that the resulting sound coming from the objects hitting each other would create a mysterious atmosphere when combined with the image of Dersu expressing his fears next to a campfire. However, after they began hosing down the trees, the water in the hosepipe froze. The propeller of an old aeroplane was used for the effect of wind. Despite accompanying the crew for eight months for one job, the engine would not start due to the cold. After two hours, the plane's engine caught fire and the shoot had to be cancelled. Whenever a blizzard was needed for the shoot, precreated piles of snow were tossed in the air by shovels in front of a fan. Kurosawa initially wanted to use a wild tiger for certain scenes, but the process of capturing the animal and persuading it to follow stage directions proved impossible. The tiger collapsed, Solomin complained about the animal's treatment and Kurosawa called the shoot off. When they returned to Moscow an old circus tiger was used to complete the scenes.
Originally the plan had been for location shooting to finish before the end of the year. It was decided that only the reshoots and scenes absolutely necessary to be shot in Arsenyev would be filmed on location, with the rest filmed in Moscow. Under pressure from the Soviet producers, January 1975 was a difficult moment for the crew as Kurosawa became sleepless and drank heavily. He and Nakai argued over filming arrangements, and a particularly difficult mountain shoot failed to be properly realised. The crew returned to Moscow on 18 January, Kurosawa became angry regularly as filming continued and he became more exhausted. Filming wrapped on 28 April 1975.