Toshiro Mifune was born in Tsingtao (now Qingdao), China, to Japanese parents, and grew up in the Chinese city of Dalian with his parents and two siblings. In his youth, Mifune worked in the photography shop of his father Tokuzo, a commercial photographer and importer who had emigrated from northern Japan. Tokuzo was a Methodist, and there is evidence that he was also a missionary, ministering to the ethnic Japanese in Dalian.
Although the young Toshiro spent the first 19 years of his life in China, and could even speak Mandarin, as a Japanese citizen he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Air Force, where he served in the Aerial Photography (Ko-type) unit during the Second World War. He repatriated to Japan in 1946.
In 1947, one of Mifune's friends who worked for the Photography Department of Toho Productions suggested Mifune try out for the Photography Department. He was accepted for a position as an assistant cameraman. However, the union was affiliated with the Communist party, which made Mifune, a religiously conservative man, very uncomfortable.
At this time, a large number of Toho actors, after a prolonged strike, had left to form their own company. The studio organized a "new faces" contest to find new talent. Mifune's friends submitted an application and photo, without his knowledge. He was accepted, along with 48 others (out of roughly 4000 applicants), and allowed to take a screen test for Kajiro Yamamoto. Instructed to mime anger, he drew from his wartime experiences, delivering such a powerfully authentic performance that the testers feared he would be too arrogant and troublesome to work with. Fortunately, however, Yamamoto took a liking to Mifune, recommending him to director Senkichi Taniguchi. This led to Mifune's first feature role, in Shin Baka Jidai.
One of 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. Yoshimine's parents were strongly opposed to the union. Mifune was doubly an outsider, being a non-Buddhist as well as a native Manchurian (Manchuria being associated with misfits and eccentrics by mainland Japanese). His choice of profession also made him suspect, as actors were generally assumed to be irresponsible and financially incapable of supporting a family. Director Senkichi Taniguchi, with the help of Akira Kurosawa, convinced the Yoshimine family to allow the marriage. It took place in February of 1950. In November of the same year, their first son Shiro was born. In 1955, they had a second son, Takeshi. Mifune's daughter Mika was born in 1982.
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 a samurai or ronin, who was 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 The 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 highly valued Mifune for his effortless portrayal of unvarnished emotion, once commenting that he could convey in only three feet of film an emotion that would require the average Japanese actor ten feet. On the other hand, his portrayal of Musashi Miyamoto in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy is deliberately made to become the epitome of samurai honour and manners.
Mifune was famous for his self-depreciating sense of humor, which often found its way into his film roles. He was renowned for the effort he put into his performances. To prepare for The Seven Samurai and Rashomon, Mifune reportedly studied tapes of lions in the wild; for Ánimas Trujano, he studied tapes of Mexican actors speaking, so he could recite all his lines in Spanish. In his earliest film roles in English like Grand Prix, made in 1966, he learned his lines phonetically. This met with limited success and his voice was often dubbed by Paul Frees. By the time he made Red Sun in 1971 he had become somewhat more proficent in the language and his voice is heard throughout this multinational western. He was always disappointed that he did not have a larger career in the West. His most prominent English-language role was probably playing Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in Midway.
Mifune has been credited as originating the "roving warrior" archetype, which he perfected during his collaboration with Kurosawa. Clint Eastwood was among the first of many American actors to adopt this persona, which he used to great effect in his Western roles, especially the spaghetti westerns made with Sergio Leone.
Most of the sixteen Kurosawa–Mifune films are considered cinema classics. These include Rashomon, Stray Dog, The Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, 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. Most of Mifune's contemporaries acted in several different movies throughout the year. 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 were bleak for both Mifune and Kurosawa. After the film's release, both men found work hard to come by, and a mix of personal and professional troubles sent each into depression. During this time, Mifune divorced his wife, an act which Kurosawa — a conservative Japanese traditionalist — found to be reprehensible. In 1980, Mifune experienced newfound popularity with mainstream American audiences through his role as Lord Toranaga in the television miniseries Shogun. Yet Kurosawa did not rejoice in his estranged friend's success, and publicly made derisive remarks about Shogun, perhaps because, at that time, none of the films he had created without Mifune had made much impact with American audiences.
In a 1984 magazine poll, Mifune was voted the "most Japanese Man among men. The One whose face expressed the Best of Japanese Pride, Power & Virility". In his native land and overseas, he is still often viewed as the epitome of Japanese manhood.
Early in the 1980s, Mifune founded an acting school, Mifune Geijutsu Gakuin. The school failed after only three years, due to mismanaged finances.
Mifune received wider audience acclaim in the West than he had ever had before after playing Toranaga in the 1980 miniseries Shogun. However, the series' historical inaccuracy and somewhat simplified view of Japan meant that it was not as well received in his homeland. It deepened the rift with Kurosawa, virtually ensuring that they would not work together again.
Kurosawa seems to have made various uncharitable comments about Mifune, and Mifune about Kurosawa, and on many occasions they openly expressed feelings of resentment toward one another. They finally made something of a reconciliation in 1993 at the funeral of their friend Ishiro Honda. After making tenuous eye contact, they tearfully embraced one another, ending nearly three decades of mutual avoidance. They never collaborated again, however, nor did they have a chance to restore their friendship fully. Both died within the next five years.
In 1992, Mifune began suffering from a serious health problem, the exact nature of which is not fully known. It has been variously suggested that he destroyed his health with overwork, suffered a heart attack, or experienced a stroke. For whatever reason, he abruptly retreated from public life and remained largely confined to his home, cared for by his ex-wife Sachiko. When she succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 1995, Mifune's physical and mental state began to decline rapidly.
He died in Mitaka, Japan, of multiple organ failure at the age of 77.
