Ikiru (1952)

Director:

Akira Kurosawa

Writers:

Shinobu Hashimoto (writer)
Akira Kurosawa (writer)

Release Date:

25 March 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Kanji Watanabe is a longtime bureaucrat in a city office who, along with the rest of the office, spends his entire working life doing nothing...

Plot Keywords:

Office | Cancer | Park | City Hall | Playground

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 5 wins

Cast

Takashi Shimura	...	Kanji Watanabe
Shinichi Himori	...	Kimura
Haruo Tanaka	...	Sakai
Minoru Chiaki	...	Noguchi
Miki Odagiri	...	Toyo Odagiri, employee
Bokuzen Hidari	...	Ohara
Minosuke Yamada	...	Subordinate Clerk Saito
Kamatari Fujiwara	...	Sub-Section Chief Ono
Makoto Kobori	...	Kiichi Watanabe, Kanji's Brother
Nobuo Kaneko	...	Mitsuo Watanabe, Kanji's son
Nobuo Nakamura	...	Deputy Mayor
Atsushi Watanabe	...	Patient
Isao Kimura	...	Intern
Masao Shimizu	...	Doctor
Yûnosuke Itô	...	Novelist

Also Known As:

Doomed
Living (International: English title) (informal English title)
To Live (International: English title) (informal English title)

Runtime:

143 min | Sweden:123 min (cut version)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese | English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Not Rated | Sweden:11 | Finland:S | UK:PG (video rating) (1994) | UK:A (original rating) | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Japan

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

The only Akira Kurosawa film between Yoidore tenshi (Drunken Angel) and Akahige (Red Beard) not to feature 'Toshiro Mifune'.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: A beer sign is backwards in a bar scene, revealing the use of a mirror image.

Quotes:

Toyo: [telling joke] "You've never had a day off, have you?" "No." "Why? Are you indispensable?" "No. I don't want them to find out they can do without me."

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Little Children (2006)

Soundtrack:

Happy Birthday

A cinematic tour de force

"Ikiru" is supposedly one of Steven Spielberg's favourite films, and one can see the influence it's had on him not only in the sentimentality and the ultimate "feelgood factor" (which may be a little too extreme for some viewers, although the script never condescends), but visually, especially in the virtuoso sequence in which a reprobate leads our hero, a respectable and dull civil servant, on a whirlwind tour of Tokyo's frenzied nightlife - a masterpiece of camera placement and editing. With images throughout that will stay with you for a long time, and a terrific supporting performance by Miki Odagiri as a vivacious young "office lady", "Ikiru" is still an absolute knockout more than 50 years on.