Rating: 
Summary: One of Kurosawa's Best Movies
Review: I have to concur with all of the previous reviews. I've seen the movie half a dozen times and pick up more and more with each viewing. No matter how many times I've seen it, the happy birthday scene is the one that always brings tears to my eyes. It is then that Watanabe is reborn. Leonard Maltin described the movie as "depressing". I actually find it uplifting. It deals with one man's new found passion for life! It is a beautifully filmed movie and one of Kurosawa's very best.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't be anything but 5 stars
Review: This is a stately, majestic masterpiece of world cinema. My parents first took me to it at the age of 5 or 6, and a few images stuck with me forever.Watanabe is a colorless, boring civil servant who has put in his time at the city offices for 35 years ... and then learns he has but a few months to live. (Ikiru means "To Live.") Over the next few weeks he tries everything he can think of to deal with this awful news -- taking out his cash and going on the town, trying to enjoy life with and through a much younger female subordinate, attempting to reconnect with his estranged son.... Takashi Shimura offers one of the great acting performances of all time. It's hard to believe this is the same man who leads "The Seven Samurai" a few years later (never mind his hilarious cameo in the original "Godzilla" as a frightened peasant). Formally, the film is a fascinating study of plotting and film editing. (What can you say about a movie whose opening shot is a stomach X-ray? See Donald Richie's excellent book _The Films of Akira Kurosawa_ for more in-depth discussion of this film's techniques.) Be prepared to settle into this story. It's lengthy and not fast paced. If you can do this, you will be hugely rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: Yep -- It's One Of The Very Best
Review: If you've read the previous reviews, you get the idea -- this is a truly great film, one that may (believe it or not) change your life. The scene on the swing is, maybe, the most profound and moving ever made. You'll see.
Rating:
Summary: One Of The Very Best Movies Ever Made
Review: Like all of Kurosawa's best movies, it covers the whole span of human emotion; Hollywood directors whose "masterpieces" practically take one by the hand and lead you carefully through the thickets to an ending whose point even a child couldn't possibly miss would do well to learn from Kurosawa. One finishes Ikriu and doesn't know quite what to think: did the protagonist really make a difference? But, then, that's life, isn't it?
Rating:
Summary: What would you do if you had less than a year to live?
Review: Along with "Seven Samurai", this is often considered to be Kurosawa's greatest film. It may move you to tears, but there's not a single moment of sentimentality or "tear-jerking" in the movie. A warning is in order: this is that rare thing, a work of art which may make you feel you need to change your own life. Don't see it unless you are willing to risk a painful existential wake-up call.
Rating:
Summary: Akira Kurosawa is on point again.
Review: Another classic film by Akira Kurosawa, this one contemplates the meaning of life. The film may be depressing and sad but that's how life is. Takashi Shimura gives an excellent performance as an old man who slaves his life for an ungrateful son.
Rating:
Summary: The best Kurosawa film I have seen
Review: Ikiru is riveting from the first scene to the last. It is Takashi Shimura's best performance I have seen. The cinematography is incredible. Ikiru is about a dying man who has sacrificed his life by leading a boring and uneventful existence to create a stable family unit with his son after the early demise of his wife. He realizes that he has never lived (taken the wrong path)and becomes determined to make a difference in some way before his death. The depiction of post-war Japan in the typical local government is incredible. Kurosawa's imagery and symbolism is beautiful and haunting. Every Kurosawa fan must see this film!
Rating:
Summary: A film full of tears, both of sadness and of joy.
Review: Few films truely touch the heart with both sadness and redemption. The great team of Kurasawa and Shimura accomplish this with a touching storyline, creative cinematography and sound management, and outstanding acting. Yes, the film will no doubt bring the strongest person to tears. But, then, the truth will do that all too often....
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest films ever made.
Review: Academy Award winning director Akira Kurosawa, and critically acclaimed actor Takashi Shimura paint a wonderful portrait of not only the stagnantly beauracratic post-war Japan, but a stunning look at the use one's life. Wattanabe (Shimura) is a regretful beauracrat who learns he has gastric cancer after working 30 straight years in the Mayor's office. After being shunned by his ungrateful son, and attempting suicide, Wattanabe searches for a way "To Live" before dying. One of the Top Ten Best Films by the New York Times. END
Rating:
Summary: Part It's a Wonderful Life, part Citizen Kane
Review: but it is better than either of those films. I just got done watching Ikiru for the first time and it is the first film that I have seen for years that has moved me to shed a tear. I am not going to tell people what to think of Ikiru just that they should definantly see it.
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