Ikiru - Criterion Collection

Starring:Takashi Shimura, Shinichi Himori, Haruo Tanaka, Minoru Chiaki, Miki Odagiri, Bokuzen Hidari, Minosuke Yamada, Kamatari Fujiwara, Makoto Kobori, Nobuo Kaneko, Nobuo Nakamura, Atsushi Watanabe (II), Isao Kimura, Masao Shimizu, YÃ»nosuke ItÃ´, Kumeko Urabe, Kin Sugai, Eiko Miyoshi, Fumiko Honma, Yatsuko Tanami
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Studio: Criterion
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com essential video

Blessed with timeless humanity, grace, and heartbreaking compassion, Ikiru is one of the most moving dramas in the history of film. Legendary director Akira Kurosawa is best remembered for his samurai epics, but this contemporary masterpiece ranks among his greatest achievements, matched in every respect by the finest performance of Takashi Shimura's celebrated career. Shimura, who nobly led the Seven Samurai two years later, is sublimely perfect as a melancholy civil servant who, upon learning that he has terminal cancer, realizes he has nothing to show for his dreary, unsatisfying life. He seeks solace in nightlife and family, to no avail, until a simple inspiration leads him to a final, enduring act of public generosity. Expressing his own thoughts about death and the universal desire for a meaningful existence, Kurosawa infuses this drama with social conscience and deep, personal conviction, arriving at a conclusion that is emotionally overwhelming and simply unforgettable. --Jeff Shannon

Description

In this film, considered by some critics to be Akira Kurosawa's greatest and most compassionate achievement, Takashi Shimura (Seven Samurai) portrays Kenji Watanabe, an aging bureaucrat with stomach cancer forced to strip the veneer off his existence and find meaning in his final days.

Customer Reviews:

what would you do if you had six months to live? .......2007-06-28

Though Akira Kurosawa is perhaps best-known for his samurai films (YOJIMBO, SEVEN SAMURAI, as a couple of examples), IKIRU takes a detour from that theme and, for me, was one of the finest films he made. Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) is a public servant and has worked for the government for thirty years. His days consist of pushing papers around on his desk and adding a stamp of approval to a slew of documents. When he learns that he will soon succumb to untreatable stomach cancer, every aspect of his mundane existence is turned on its head. For so many years, this has man has lived "off to the side" in his life and he doesn't have the time to do that anymore. His newly found attitude, that comes with the realization of his irreversible fate, leads to a multitude of life changes that those around him aren't sure what to make of. Ultimately, Watanabe's new approach to the world and what his part is on the earth manages to touch everyone around him (for good or worse). This film co-stars Shinichi Himori and Haruo Tanaka.

IKIRU shows a beautifully poignant side of Kurosawa, as a storyteller. We see a man in Watanabe that we probably all have encountered at some point (maybe that man even exists within us!). This individual has spent so many years as a cog in the wheel of life that he has put aside his emotions and true feelings just to get by in life without starting trouble. The beautiful cinematography in this story particularly well-showcases Watanabe's physical deterioration in the face of his illness. His eyes speak volumes about his physical pain, and yet he finds new-found strength to cling on to life in the wake of his last breaths in this world. This feeling of urgency is contrasted by moments of newly realized joy and gratitude. There are so many haunting moments, whether we are watching Watanabe interact with his white collar colleagues or breaking loose for a night on the town with a vagabond he encounters at a bar, the night that the two men really go out for a night on the town. This is a beautifully made film and really is timeless. I have a hard time believing that this was made in 1952 because it could have been released just yesterday. It is truly a fine depiction of the human condition and the fragility of the life with which we have been given.

Ikiru.......2007-06-26

Though best known for his samurai epics, Kurosawa in 1951 crafted this profoundly moving tale about finding purpose and dignity in the forbidding face of death. In one of the richest performances of his career, veteran actor Shimura ("Seven Samurai") plays a man struggling with the idea of how to live after decades of entombment in a heavily routinized existence. Odagiri is marvelous, too, as the bright, attractive young girl who leads him to rediscover the community-minded idealism of his youth. "Ikiru" may be Japanese in provenance, but its appeal is universal.

My favorite movie of all time........2007-06-21

When I had seen this movie a mere ten or so times already, I insisted my friends from Japan watch it with me. They protested because the film is old. One said, "My grandmother was young when that movie came out--that's how old it is." But since I insisted, they watched, and mid-movie they actually turned to me with tears streaming down their faces saying it was the greatest movie they had ever seen.

I don't usually review movies, or read movie reviews, but do love watching them--much more so than television.

This movie is personal to me. I've seen it over twenty times--since way back before DVD even existed--even though the movie is from way beck before I existed.

It's full of common heros and common villans. You will find yourself somewhere amongst the characters, feeling and thinking as they feel, and perhaps being reformed by what happens in the movie--which I wont give you even a hint about because that's one of the chief reasons I do not read movie reviews.

Besides, if I told you the basic story line, you might think it sounds boring and not watch it; whereas if you do watch it, I am sure you will be deeply touched and perhaps overhaul at least some aspect of the way you "Live" as a result--which happens to be the meaning of the title "Ikiru."

Note that I recommend you go with subtitles instead of voice over if you don't understand Japanese--as I didn't when I first saw this film, but have become fluent in since. There's no substitute for the voices and sounds of the people and places in this film; this is not a kung fu movie,where everything is action and expression. Everything in the movie is very vivid to the senses, and your imagination will more than make up for whatever lapse in understanding the dialogue.

BOTTOM LINE: The best movie I have ever seen. Beyond anyone's ability to describe in way that wont cause you to miss it.

good movie.......2007-06-11

This is an uplifting, carefully crafted movie by a master. The last scene will stay with you forever.

One of the world's perfect films........2007-05-12

Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)

I find Ikiru a very difficult film about which to wax lyrical. I'm not sure why this is, because the film begs praise; it is a work of absolute brilliance in every respect, perhaps Kurosawa's (if not the Japanese film industry's) single finest moment. But how to explain why? All I can do, all any of us can do, is lay it out for you. It takes Akira Kurosawa to make it come alive.

Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) is the chief clerk in a department on Tokyo City Hall. He has worked there for thirty years, and accomplished nothing of note. As the film opens, we are told that he has gastric cancer, and will soon be dead. Soon enough, Watanabe himself finds this out (more through the idle banter of another old man in the waiting room than his duplicitous doctor), and realizes that there has to be more to life than this. The rest of the film chronicles Watanabe's search to figure out how to live, and his quest's effect on those around him.

The film would not be what it is without Takashi Shimura, who takes Kurosawa's script and turns a paper Watanabe into an amazing character, a man struggling to throw off the boundaries imposed upon him by job, culture, and family. Shimura's performance alone would be enough to make this an above-average film, but everyone here turns in fine performances. Kurosawa, of course, was a master director, and he shows it off here; the movie is paced slowly enough to let us get to know Watanabe and those around him, but it never drags. (Pretty amazing for a two and a half hour film about an existential crisis.)

I do find it amusing that a number of reviews I've read recently have commented on the film's "feel-good factor." While it's there, and there's no doubt about that, I'm wondering how such an interpretation of the film fits in with the subtle, but devastating, final scene of the film. (Obviously, I can't say what happens without giving away the whole thing, but trust me on this.) This is a subject about which I'd love to wax lyrical, but I'm going to have to wait till you've all seen it. Let me know. *****

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