Ikiru (1952)

A bureaucrat tries to find a meaning in his life after he discovers he has terminal cancer.

Director:

Akira Kurosawa

Writers:

Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto

Stars:

Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Shin'ichi Himori

Top Rated Movies #103 | Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 5 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

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
Atsushi Watanabe	...	Patient
Isao Kimura	...	Intern
Masao Shimizu	...	Doctor
Yûnosuke Itô	...	Novelist

Storyline

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...

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Plot Keywords:

meaning of life | cancer | death | bureaucrat | playground | 

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Taglines:

What can a heart filled with despair grab on to?

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

The song sung by Kanji Watanabe, in the bar, is called Gondola no Uta, "The Gondola Song". Written in 1915, it is a song about women and how they should find love before their time has run out.

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Goofs

In the last scene with Toyo (in the restaurant with the birthday party going on), the position of the bell on the mechanical bunny changes, even though neither actor has touched the bunny.

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Quotes

Kanji: Now I remember: I nearly drowned in a pond once when I was a child. I felt exactly the same way then. Everything's going black. I writhe and thrash around, but there's nothing to hold on to - except you.
Toyo: What about your son?
Kanji: Don't talk to me about him! I have no son. I'm all alone.
Toyo: But...
Kanji: No, you don't understand! My son is somewhere far away. Just as my mom and pop were when I was drowning in that pond. Remembering it now, it's even more painful than it was then.

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Connections

Featured in Life Itself (2014)

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Soundtracks

Come On-A My House
(1951) (uncredited)
Words and Music by William Saroyan and Ross Bagdasarian

User Reviews

"Only when he learned he would die did he start to live!"

Ikiru ("to live")is a Kurosawa film devoid of samurai or Toshiro Mifune. It is an oddity in his canon, neither an adaptation, nor an epic, or even a detective story. Instead, it is the simple and touching story of the last months of the life of a man, Watanabbe, public official, who decides to give a meaning to his life by transcending the obtuse and stiff mind of government bureaucracy to get a small public children's park built. As a parable for the soulless workings of modern bureaucracy, the goal is set pretty high, and Kurosawa goes even further, giving this story a lot of character, frequent humor, life and, most of all, heart. And going beyond the strengths of the direction and script, is the central performance by Takashi Shimura (later Kambei in Seven Samurai). Shimura gives his character such a transparently good heart and such great pain that every second of Watanabe's plight and struggle tugs at your heart, not in an overwhelmingly sentimental manner, but in one than feels honest and pure. If even many hardened souls will be drawn to tears, it is not for pity, but, admirably, because of envy for Watanabe's beautiful human dignity in the end, and for a film to have such power is beyond pure accomplishment, as the need to see this and, more importantly, feel it, goes beyond pure necessity...

Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

25 March 1956 (USA)

Also Known As:

Ikiru

Filming Locations:

Japan

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$2,149, 29 December 2002

Gross USA:

$60,239

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$96,302

Company Credits

Production Co:

Toho Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

143 min 123 min (cut)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1