Runtime: 88 minutes
Directed by: Duh, Akira
Kurosawa
Starring: Toshiro Mifune,
Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki
From: Daiei
You know, I figured it was
about time to watch this all-time movie classic, the basic structure
of which (several different people tell differing accounts of the
same incident) has been ripped off probably thousands of times by now
by all forms of entertainment from films to TV to novels to plays to
what have you) has become cliché by now; I've seen the device used
too many times to accurately guess but yet I never saw this, despite
it not being a long film and it being on channels like TCM not so
infrequently. Finally, via Hulu Plus I was able to give this a watch.
Like I said this is about
something that happens when an incident happens and several different
opinion give their opinions on what happened. In this case its the
murder of the samurai, and the opinion of why the murder took place.
There is also a rape of the samurai's wife (what is it with Japan and
rape?), who was traveling with her husband and the thief Tajomaru
(Mifune) took a shine to her. All that is agreed upon; what happened
after the rape and just how that samurai died... that's where the
four variations happen.
I'll spoil one thing right
away: there's no clear-cut resolution and you don't know for certain
which story is right, if there's an element of truth to all four
stories, or what have you. That and how this was revolutionary
filmmaking (for example, there's hand-held footage, something quite
rare back then) makes this a classic and why this has become so
famous. The quality performances throughout also give it the
reputation it deserves. All of the actors you see (there aren't many)
have to go through a range of emotions depending on which version of
the story you see. Mifune as the bandit, though... what a crazed
maniac he was, itching often as if he was Tyrone Biggins, laughing
like a lunatic... it's a performance you'll never forget.
I don't want to give too
much else away as the fun is seeing all the stories unfold and then
deciding what actually happened instead of having the movie declare
what the truth is... it was about time I saw this.
I'll be back Thursday
night.
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