A bureaucrat tries to find a meaning in his life after he discovers he has terminal cancer.
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Title: Ikiru (1952)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Takashi Shimura | ... | Kanji Watanabe | |
| Shin'ichi 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 | |
|
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Atsushi Watanabe | ... | Patient |
|
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Isao Kimura | ... | Intern |
| Masao Shimizu | ... | Doctor | |
| Yûnosuke Itô | ... | Novelist | |
Kanji Watanabe is a civil servant. He has worked in the same department for 30 years. His life is pretty boring and monotonous, though he once used to have passion and drive. Then one day he discovers that he has stomach cancer and has less than a year to live. After the initial depression he sets about living for the first time in over 20 years. Then he realises that his limited time left is not just for living life to the full but to leave something meaningful behind... Written by grantss
Kanji Watanabi is a quiet, melancholy man who has spent all his life behind his office desk doing sweet eff-all. When he is diagnosed with stomach cancer he realizes that he has been petty much dead his whole life, and searches desperately for away to live again.
This is Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, yes, even better than Rashomon and The Seven Samauri. It is a perfect true story of everybody's life- how we don't even realize we have it until we know it will be over in a short while. Watanabi's quest for self-discovery is one of the greatest from any motion picture ever made. The all-too-true paradox is one to end all paradoxes- that Watanabi is dead, and had been all his life, until he realized he was sick, which is when he began living for the first time. Takashi Shimura, the actor best known for his role as the wise, bald-headed Samauri in The Seven Samauri, and the professor out of the early Godzilla films, plays Watanabi perfectly- in my mind, it's one of the greatest film performances of all time.
Not everyone will love this movie. It was made a long time ago, the main character is an old fogey, it has subtitles, and it's pretty long. Many people today, especially young kids, would find it boring. Well, let 'em. There's no need to worry about them, they'll always have Pirates of the Carribbean, they'll always have The Matrix. Leave Ikiru and films like it to the true lovers of cinema.