A disaffected civil servant in late middle-age (Takashi Shimura) learns that he has terminal cancer and a few months left to live. After the initial shock and panic wears off, he sets out in a last-ditch attempt to find a … Continue reading REVIEW: Ikiru (1952)
Kameda (Masayuki Mori) is a naïve man who suffers from epilepsy. He returns home to Hokkaido after almost being shot by firing squad in Okinawa. There he meets Taeko (Setsuko Hara), a former mistress to a rich business man, who … Continue reading REVIEW: The Idiot (1951)
I just don’t understand,’ mutters a woodcutter (Takashi Shimizu), and he shelters under the half-ruined eaves of the Rashomon gate with a priest (Minoru Chiaki) and a passer-by (Kichijiru Ueda). The woodcutter has just returned from a trial by the … Continue reading REVIEW: Rashomon (1950)
Artist Ichiro Aoe (Toshiro Mifune) meets pop singer Miyako Saigo (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) in the mountains. She has missed her bus, so he offers her a ride back to her hotel on his motorbike. They are photographed together by an opportunistic … Continue reading REVIEW: Scandal (1950)
Yuzo (Isao Numasaki) and Masako (Chieko Nakakita) meet in Tokyo one Sunday morning for a date. They have only 35 yen between them. Over the course of a single day they face numerous challenges as they wander the streets of … Continue reading REVIEW: One Wonderful Sunday (1947)
During a crippling Tokyo heatwave, a homicide detective (Toshiro Mifune) has his gun stolen out of his holster while taking the tram. When the stolen gun is used to murder someone, the desperate rookie teams up with a veteran detective … Continue reading REVIEW: Stray Dog (1949)
They can’t all be winners, as the saying goes. Akira Kurosawa’s eighth directorial feature is also his least effective so far, with a story that is too simple and characters whose over-emotive turmoil destroy any chance of realism or nuance. … Continue reading REVIEW: The Quiet Duel (1949)
One of the most significant actor-director partnerships in history kicked off in 1948, when Akira Kurosawa direct his seventh feature: the atmospheric film noir Drunken Angel. Sanada (Takashi Shimura) is an alcoholic doctor working in a post-war Tokyo suburb. One night … Continue reading REVIEW: Drunken Angel (1948)
Akira Kurosawa’s fifth film, No Regrets for Our Youth, was his first to be made following the end of the Pacific War. With Japan’s military government completely disbanded, and a new wave of democracy flowing over the embattled country, Kurosawa was … Continue reading REVIEW: No Regrets For Our Youth (1946)
Moviegoers concerned that Hollywood produces too many needless, money-hungry sequels should feel reassured that it’s not just a contemporary phenomenon – nor is it an exclusively American one. After directing his second film, the 1944 propaganda picture The Most Beautiful, … Continue reading REVIEW: Sanshiro Sugata Part II (1945)
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