Despite the fact that it adheres to the strict aesthetic tenets of Dogma 95, Mifune is about as accessible as a romantic comedy named after a Japanese actor can get. Although Soren Kragh-Jacobsen's film, like the Dogma releases that preceded it (Breaking the Waves and The Celebration) eschews special effects, incidental music, etc., Mifune isn't nearly as dark.
Kresten (Anders W. Berthelsen) is an ambitious businessman who has successfully concealed his rural past until it catches up with him upon the death of his father. He leaves his new wife (who just happens to be his boss' daughter) after the honeymoon, telling her he'll be back soon, but sparing her as many details as possible. And so he returns to the ancestral farm, hoping to tie up a few loose ends and then return to his comfortably bourgeois existence in the city. But the situation at home turns out to be far worse than he thought, particularly in regards to his mentally challenged brother, Rud (Jasper Asholt), who simply will not leave the house.
Then there's Liva (Iben Hjejle from High Fidelity), an attractive woman who, ironically enough, has just moved to the country in order to escape her not-so-comfortable life in the city. She is soon joined by her rambunctious little brother...and fellow call girls.
Throughout the chaos, it is Rud who shares Kresten's love of the great Akira Kurosawa's samurai epics starring the gruff and grumbly Toshiro Mifune (thus providing the film with some of its most most amusing moments) and serving to remind Kresten what was good about his past and why it just may be worth holding on to after all.
