Rating: 
Summary: "Egoism is a sin man carries with him from birth..."
Review: Often regarded along "Seven Samurai" as one of the greatest Japanese films ever made, "Rashomon" still stands strong even today. Part of this is the acting, but the main reason is of course the masterful storytelling by Akira Kurosawa through his directing and his screenwriting with Shinobu Hashimoto. Here is quintessential Kurosawa, with his classic camera angles, scene compositions, the narrative method of "showing rather than telling," and basic philosophy. It was also a major introduction to the west of Japanese film and became an international success, gaining worldwide attention to Japanese cinema and Toshiro Mifune in particular.
Though many take it at face value as a murder mystery or a simple tale of different points of views, Kurosawa meant for it to be much deeper than that. "Rashomon" is, among other things, a poignant look on man's reason for lying. All of the storytellers in this film lie to some extent. The question is: why? Why spin so much? And why must each story center around themselves? The fact is, in the end, you never really know what happens, because these characters themselves cannot even recall what happened. They have all become so absorbed into their own fantasized retellings that truth is no longer a word to them. I don't need to tell you, though - you can see it for yourself.
The DVD features commentary by Donald Richie ("The Films of Akira Kurosawa") who offers some insight into the film, along with some documentaries. The booklet contains information from Stephen Price and Kurosawa himself on the film, as well as the original literary stories. Among the other special features is an optional English dub - yes, that's right, a dubbed Kurosawa film. Oh the horror...and horrors indeed. The Commoner sounds like a frog, and the priest sounds like any minute he'll end a sentence with "...Grasshopper." Even worse is Tajomaru's dub. I think he was trying to sound Japanese - he sounds constipated. Sorry, but you can't dub Toshiro Mifune or Takashi Shimura any more than you can dub Anthony Hopkins or Robert Duvall.
All in all, for Kurosawa fan or film buff alike, a good film.
Rating:
Summary: Rashomon
Review: A Warrior, his Wife, and a Thief encounter each other in a forest. The Wife is raped and the Warrior dies. Establishing who is responsible for what and what truly happened proves difficult, if not impossible. Through a series of flashbacks and stories-within-stories we come close to learning the `truth,' learning the limitations of `truth' in the process.
I approached RASHOMON with a certain amount of trepidation. I watched it years and years ago and don't remember much about the first viewing. I'm happy to report that RASHOMON can be enjoyed without notepad or textbook. It's a beautiful looking black-and-white film that was more or less Kurosawa favorite Toshiro Mifune's coming out movie. Mifune plays the Thief with a full palette. As the various stories unfold, the Thief ranges from noble to craven, from hysterical to plotting. Sometimes Mifune seems a little... excessive to me, but sooner or later I catch up with what he's doing. In other words, he's brilliant, and repeated viewings won't catch him playing it false. And if there's ever been a movie that rewards repeat viewers, it's RASHOMON.
There are classics and there are Classics, and Akira Kurosawa's RASHOMON is a 600-pound lumbering giant of a Classic. Capital-C Classics can be a little intimidating and more than a little disappointing. RASHOMON can be enjoyed without digging deep into it. The commentary track by Donald Richie is informative, if a little didactic. He tends to tell us what we're seeing, although he compensates by also letting us know what to look for in repeated viewings. The introduction by Robert Altman could probably have been dispensed with without too much harm - basically it's six minutes of Altman telling us how much he likes the movie. The except from The World of Kazuo Miyagawa is interesting and abrupt.
Rating: 
Summary: A Classic all of it's own
Review: This is the type of movie that will make you think. For those that want to disengage their brain and be entertained - look elsewhere. This is an intriguing movie where the witnesses of horrific act each tell their own version of what happened. The story takes a peek into how the mind copes with what it can't understand (or isn't ready to). For those unfamiliar with Kurosawa's work, this film is a masterpiece. Kurosawa makes clever use of the camera in building the audience's suspense in a very similar fashion to what Alfred Hitchcock did. Contemporary audiences may find this technique more agitating than viewers in the 1950's as audience attention spans have shrunk - however this only makes the technique more effective.
For those seeking a psychological exploration of the human mind at it's worst (and best), you will definitely enjoy this film. It bears resemblance to classic greek plays where the audience is asked to think and reflect rather than be whirled around on ride like modern films. For film students, it is an first-hand example of innovation in film-making technique and dramatic effect.
Rating:
Summary: Sun and Rain
Review: Weather forms a central character in Kurasawa's Rashomon.
In the story line, it's so hot...that the breeze that stirs the sleeping satyr-like panther Mifune, causes him to kill. He says so! The scene where he pulls slowly at the leather thong to which his sword is tied as he looks up into the dazzling light filtering down through the leaves! That slow movement to evil. Caused by the heat and one breath of air.
The rain that relentlessly batters the Rashomon gate forms another plot point, and a mood..one of being completely paralyzed....the poor humans grappling to understand the complex distortions of the horrible human drama..are frozen by their inability to understand why the story is different, depending of who tells it..and unable to leave the story alone...paralyzed from shaking it off by the rain which forces them into contemplation as they sit under the rotting gate.
Buy this quick.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: This film is really something special - it has received so many good reviews that another one is kind of redundant - but I am sure there are quite a few people out there who have not seen it - so if I can convince someone to watch it I think it is worth my time. This is one of the finest Japanese films I have seen - I am not particularly into the whole samurai genre - so this philosophical film about truth is probably my favorite Kurosawa film - and along with Ozu's 'Tokyo Story' and 'Floating Weeds' my favorite Japanese film. My favorite aspect of the film is the photography - the atmospheric qualities - the rain, the lighting, the forest with sun coming through the trees. Even the close-ups of people are very powerful and every bit as classically cinematic as anything from hollywood. The story is so intriguing as well - I don't think the act of murder is really the focus of the film - it is more like an incidental element - the morality is not what is being examined - it is more about the nature of story-telling - so Kurosawa in a way is examining himself - the story-teller. Thus, we are at a duplicity - and one that leads to philosophical contemplation - something central to art.
Rating:
Summary: Kurosawa's first big hit.
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.
Rashomon remains one of the most popular and most famous Japanese films of all time. It is very deserving of it's honor and worthy the "Criterion Treatment." The film won an Academy Award® for best foreign language film. The movie also has excellent cinematography which has been imitated by many filmmakers.
The story is about 4 people who recall the recent murder of man and the sexual assault of his wife. Each person recalls the events differently from each other.
This film remains one of my favorites and has a very well done release by the Criterion Collection. There are great special features on the DVD also.
They are:
A theatrical trailer
Optional English language dubbing.
Scenes from "World of Kazuo Miyagawa" a documentary on the film's cinematographer which originally aired on television in Japan.
An introduction with Robert Altman
Audio commentary by Donald Richie.
In addition to this, the liner notes have the two short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa which the film is based on and an excerpt from director Akira Kurosawa's autobiography.
This is an essential film to buy on DVD and should be owned by all interested in Japanese cinema.
Rating:
Summary: As good--I mean great--as it's supposed to be
Review: With a director as nimble as Kurosawa it is pretty important to find the best entry-way into his world for newcomers, lest they be alienated by a rather obscure and unrepresentative film like DREAMS (which happened to me, incidentally). Rashomon is one of those entry-ways. It combines Kurosawa's taste for the medieval and his fascination with injecting the distinctly modern Toshiro Mifune into those settings. It's as though Kurosawa were saying: now let's take 12th century Japan, put Mifune there as a leonic psychopath, and see what happens. Well, in Rashomon a masterpiece happens: reality shatters into a thousand pieces. It is one of those films you will hear your entire life is all that and a bag of chips, and it is one where this accolade is actually true.
There are plenty of masterful directors out there to whet the appetite for art, but it doesn't seem to me that there are many of them able to appeal to as broad a base as Kurosawa. Godard is so experimental he tends to appeal to a taste, like cinematic Guinness. Bergman is rarely mundane enough to be enjoyed by the man in the street. Bunuel is extremely intellectual, even when dealing with sex and obscure objects of desire. And so on. Rest assured that whoever you are or whatever your interests in film, be they purely hedonistic or more academic, Kurosawa in general and Rashomon in particular will give you much food to chew on. Good food. Great food.
Rating:
Summary: The one that set the standard
Review: When Akira Kurasawa released this film in 1950, it was not expected to do well. When it won various awards around the world, including the Academy award for best foreign film, the reaction was one of some surprise. Now, over 50 years later, Rashomon stands as a benchmark in cinema, a film that has been copied and ripped off countless times, but never duplicated. The camera work, storytelling, script, and setting are flawless, giving us the proper mood right from the start.The start is a torrential rainstorm, where several men sit around discussing a trial they have either witnessed, or taken part in. The trial concerns the murder of a samurai and the rape of his wife, apparantly at the hands of a famous bandit (played by Toshiro Mifune, a Kurasawa favorite). The story of what actually happened is told through the point of view of the bandit, the woman, the dead man (through a spriritual medium) and a woodcutter who was there and now is standing with these men at the beginning of the film. The interesting thing is that we as the audience are left to assume what really happened, as the film gives no definitive solution. The subject is really the nature of man, and how point of view will change the perception of a scenario to favor or in some cases, cast a negative light on events that transpire. This was the first film to shoot directly at the sun. In fact, the beginning shot of the woodcutter traveling into the woods to cut lumber is breathtaking, the camera weaves in and out, up and down, through branches and leaves, showing just how far out of the way these things will be happening. The excellent DVD has a feature on the camera work, which you will find interesting and will help you when you go back to the film for a second viewing. Also included with the disc is a booklet with the two short stories Kurasawa used as the premise for the film (most notably "In the Grove")along with an excerpt from Kurasawa's book about the shooting of the film and the apprehension of the Japanese film companies about the fact that the story seemed to have no good ending. Kurasawa explained that the story was not about the solution of the murder as it was about the nature of man. Film fans need to see this movie. So many movies made in the last few years (Snake Eyes, The Usual Suspects) owe themselves to Rashomon, movies which show us points of view that are not necessarily the truth. The fact is that four people can see a situation but report it four completely different ways. What's the truth? The truth is--that's just human nature.
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