Ikiru ***** (1952, Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Kyoko Seki, Miki Odagiri, Kamatari Fujiwara, Makoto Koburi) – Classic Movie Review 11,777

Director Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 black and white Japanese masterwork Ikiru [Living] [Doomed] is a gloomy but extremely affecting portrait of Japanese society through the story of an obscure old civil servant who finds he has cancer and decides to devote his dying months to a slum playground project for children to try to find final meaning in his life.

Takashi Shimura gives a remarkable performance as the old man Kanji Watanabe, and Kurosawa handles the piece with the utmost finesse and grace.

Takashi Shimura as Kanji Watanabe.

The scene with Watanabe on the swing in the playground he built is now iconic.

The cast are Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Kyoko Seki, Miki Odagiri, Kamatari Fujiwara, and Makoto Koburi.

The screenplay by Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni and Shinobu Hashimoto is partly inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Runtime: 2 hours 23 minutes.

Ikiru [Living] [Doomed] is directed by Akira Kurosawa, runs 143 minutes, is made and distributed by Toho, is written by Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni and Shinobu Hashimoto, is shot in black and white by Asaishi Nakai, is scored by Fumio Hayasaka and designed by So Matsuyama.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,777

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