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Takashi Shimura,
Takashi Shimura,
Nobuo Kaneko,
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Akira Kurosawa,
Akira Kurosawa
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: Criterion
: Classics, Drama, Foreign, Japan, Classic Drama, Classic Drama, Criterion Collection
: Japanese
: English
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Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru details the existential struggle of one ordinary man in his desperate search for purpose. Upon learning he has terminal stomach cancer, a low-level government bureaucrat (Takashi Shimura) leaves his job of thirty years without a word to find meaning in the year he has left to live. He is completely alone in the world -- his wife is dead, his son is practically estranged, and his co-workers (the people with whom he has more contact than any others) are little more than strangers. Rather than face a death alone in pathos, Shimura opts to make up for lost time by going to the bar (for the first time in his life), spending every last yen in his wallet and drinking himself to death. There he meets a black-clad artist (a Mephistopheles to his Faust) who leads him on a hellish (and darkly humorous) tour of the city after dark as the two crawl through every booze-soaked juke-joint in town (Kurosawa's classical training as a painter surfaces in this sequence; many critics have noted the striking similarity of the crowded dance hall scenes to the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch, (particularly Walpurgis Night). Realizing he has missed nothing, Shimura then sets his sight on a pretty young girl from the office to divert his attention from his looming mortality. Although the girl fails to serve as a lifebuoy, she does give him the inspiration to do something meaningful -- to leave a legacy, however small, that makes the world a better place. A synopsis of Ikiru cannot serve the film justice; it simply must be seen. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
This Criterion Edition includes: a new high-definition digital transfer with restored image and sound; audio commentary by Stephen Prince, author of THE WARRIOR'S CAMERA: THE CINEMA OF AKIRA KUROSAWA; the original theatrical trailer, and new and improved English subtitle translations. The film is presented in its original 1:33:1 aspect ratio. The second disc includes: A MESSAGE FROM AKIRA KUROSAWA: FOR BEAUTIFUL MOVIES (2000), an 81-minute documentary featuring interviews with Kurosawa on the sets of his later films and a 41-minute documentary on Ikiru from the series AKIRA KUROSAWA: IT IS WONDERFUL TO CREATE, including interviews with Kurosawa, writer Hideo Oguni, actor Takashi Shimura and many others.
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| Ikiru (Criterion Collection) (Bonus Disc) (1952) |
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| Greencine now rents the better DVD of Ikiru
by danleary25
January 31, 2004 - 9:32 AM PST
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15 out of 15 members found this review helpful
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| The previous review was made before Criterion released their excellent new DVD of this film and Greencine only carried the inferior R0 DVD of Ikiru. PGraydon's review is still good, it's just that the "abysmal DVD" he speaks of is no longer the one Greencine rents out. |
| Great movie, abysmal DVD
by PGraydon
May 31, 2003 - 9:55 AM PDT
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17 out of 21 members found this review helpful
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I'm a huge fan of Kurosawa's work, and Ikiru didn't disapoint. The story is poignant and masterfully told; the presentation of office politics set against a man's search for the meaning of his life was at once insightful, disturbing, and humourous. It would be interesting to play this as a double feature with Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries.
Though the film is excellent, enjoying it through this DVD is a challenge. The DVD is a Mei Ah company product, and the production quality is a terrible affront to such content. The print quality is poor, with numerous scratches. The transfer is very poor, with noticeable streaking on the right side of the screen and obvious pixelization. The sound is poor too, with numerous pops and cracks and the occasional entire phrase cut out.
The worst part of this DVD, though, was the subtitling. The titles appear to have been translated from Chinese translation rather than the original film. There are numerous misspellings, poor word choices, and complete mistranslations. Worse, the names don't match the characters! It appears that for the Chinese translation, Chinese names were given to the characters and these, rather than the original names, were romanized for the English subtitles. This was particularly distressing to me, because my (admittedly infantile) Japanese kept recognizing parts of the dialogue where the character's names didn't match what was presented in the subtitles.
The extras on the disc have value in name only. The synopsis and filmography sections contain very little information, and it is necessary to push a button once per screen to see it all in English.
I look forward to seeing this movie again sometime with a nicer presentation, preferably from Criterion. In the meantime, enjoy the film if you can, but be warned about the challenges you will face.
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