'I am a person rarely impressed by actors,' he later said. He lost the competition but Kurosawa was impressed. I was transfixed.' When Mifune, exhausted, finished his scene, he sat down and gave the judges an ominous stare. it was as frightening as watching a wounded beast trying to break loose. Kurosawa later wrote that he entered the audition to see 'a young man reeling around the room in a violent frenzy . Kurosawa was originally going to skip the event, but showed up when Hideko Takamine told him of one actor who seemed especially promising. Mifune first encountered director Akira Kurosawa when Toho Studios, the largest film production company in Japan, was conducting a massive talent search, during which hundreds of aspiring actors auditioned before a team of judges. This led to Mifune's first feature role, in Shin Baka Jidai. Yamamoto took a liking to Mifune, recommending him to director Senkichi Taniguchi. Instructed to mime anger, he drew from his wartime experiences. He was accepted, along with 48 others (out of roughly 4000 applicants), and allowed to take a screen test for Kajirō Yamamoto. Nenji Oyama, a friend of Mifune's who worked for the Photography Department of Toho Productions, sent Mifune's resume to the New Faces audition as the Photography Department was full, telling Mifune he could later transfer to the Photography Department if he wished. Toho then organized a 'new faces' contest to find new talent. In 1947, a large number of Toho actors, after a prolonged strike, had left to form their own company, Shin Toho. After spending the first 19 years of his life in China, as a Japanese citizen, he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army Aviation division, where he served in the Aerial Photography unit during World War II. In his youth, Mifune worked at his father's photo studio. Mifune grew up with his parents and two younger siblings in Dalian, Fengtian from the age of 4 to 19. Toshiro's parents, who were working as Methodist missionaries, were some of the Japanese citizens encouraged to live in Shandong by the Japanese government during its occupation before the Republic of China took over the city in 1922.

His mother Sen was the daughter of a hatamoto, a high-ranking samurai official. His father Tokuzo was a trade merchant and photographer who ran a photography business in Qingdao and Yingkou, and was originally the son of a medical doctor from Kawauchi, Akita Prefecture. Toshiro Mifune was born on Apin Seitō, Japanese-occupied Shandong (present-day Qingdao, China), the eldest son of Tokuzo and Sen Mifune.

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