Ikiru (1952)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

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 | Playground | City Hall

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 literal translation of Ikiru is "To Live".

Quotes:

Novelist: That's not art. A striptease isn't art. It's too direct. It's more direct than art. That woman's body up there? It's a big juicy steak. It's a glass of gin. It's a hormone extract. Streptomycin. Uranium!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in American Beauty (1999)

Soundtrack:

Come On-A My House

Kurosawa is Kafka going Kawabata...

Being one of the Founding Fathers of Cinema, Kurosawa shines to all directions. In his diverse oeuvre it is hard, if not impossible, to find a weak work.

Ikiru is the most humane film of this grand Humanist. Kurosawa's story telling skills are sublime, and he has surpassed himself with this movie.

The slow pace and ditto camera movements (except in the night with 'Mephistofeles' where all is logically much more frantic) enhances the story superbly. What a pity some of the nowadays public can't find the tranquility and maybe serenity to watch a gorgeous film like that. That part of the movie lovers will miss a brilliant film, that would have lingered in the mind forever...