Rating: 
Summary: The Rashomon effect.
Review: Kurosawa meets World; World loves Kurosawa. *Rashomon*, the director's first major picture to find wide release, is typically brilliant and innovative. If its central conceit -- 4 different perspectives on 1 incident -- doesn't seem all that new, well, it WAS new in 1950. People were blown away by this, having never seen anything like it before (the movie won all sorts of prizes and Oscars). This grim parable is set in 11th century feudal Japan, involving the rape of a woman and the murder of her husband in an empty grove in a forest. The rape and murder is told and re-told, with wildly varying details, by the principals -- the Bandit, the Woman, and her dead Husband's Spirit -- as well as by an ancillary witness, The Woodcutter, who stumbles upon the scene after the fact. As the commentator on this Criterion edition says, all the stories are true and none of them are true. The theme of the movie is the relativism of memory, incident, and experience. (Alain Resnais must have been heavily influenced by this particular film.) As justly famous as *Rashomon* is, I still feel that it's not quite a masterpiece, and certainly not up to Kurosawa's later standards: first of all, he has the actors, especially the Bandit and the Woman overact terribly . . . but in extenuation of the performances, it must be said that this style of acting was apparently a tradition in Japanese cinema. Mifune as the Bandit suffers the most -- Kurosawa has the poor guy behave like a rabid gibbon. (One half-expects him to climb a tree.) Secondly, the torrential downpour during the "framing" segments wherein the secondary characters are telling the story of the murder and rape is way over-the-top. It looks like the spray of several giant firehoses pointed skyward off-camera -- which is exactly what it is. Finally, there are too many pauses in the film, too much stretching-out time between action, which might make some viewers itchy from boredom. (Not much excuse for this, considering the tightness of the story's ingenious construction.) Well, obviously I'm picking nits. Though I feel *Rashomon* doesn't quite equal the director's later masterpieces (*Ikiru*, *Seven Samurai*, *The Hidden Fortress*, etc. etc. etc. for the next couple decades), this is still a massively influential movie -- a GREAT movie, an absolute necessity for Kurosawa devotees. By the way, it was re-made in America several years later: called *The Outrage*, it featured Paul Newman, absurdly made-up as a Mexican, in the Bandit role. [The best features on Criterion's DVD are the booklets inside: the complete short stories on which Kurosawa based his film. Outstanding.]
Rating:
Summary: A gem of its time
Review: After watching Rashmon and 7 Samurai ... it was no wonder that Kirosawa is the most acclaimed director of the East. Though the movie was made at a time of Black and white ... its story and cinematography was surprisingly unconventional and could rival any Hollywood movie of mordern times.It had a story that you will find exciting enough to glue you to the screen to know the ending. When it ended you find yourselve so empty that you actually still do not know the real truth. In the end you'll never know what actually happened. Trying to piece the truths together prove to be impossible just like any truths you might hear in the mordern times.
However, the 3 stories which made up the film work better if it had more grey areas. Its was pretty unbelievable that the three stories could be so different though the idea that the truth will never be the truth is a theme that would never go out of date, but just simply not very popular among mordern movie makers. Its a better and more thought provoking movie than the more popular 7 Samurai and I would recommend to all this classic that have as theme that would never go out of date
Rating: 
Summary: Classic Kurosawa Never Looked Better!
Review: Beautifully shot, imaginatively edited, and brilliant ensemble performances. Would you expect anything less from Akira "The Seven Samurai" Kurosawa? Of course not. This DVD looks and sounds fantastic. If you're a novice to world cinema, fear not. The audio commentary track explains a plethora of reasons behind this film's significance AND greatness. Also included: a documentary highlighting the director and cinematographer during their later years; theatrical trailer; English language track(don't you dare!)
Rating:
Summary: For Paul Gordon re: Frame glitch
Review: The disc is dual-layered. Often, when switching layers (thereby switching laser frequency), there is a frame glitch. Like memory on a portable CD player, high end DVD players often have memory to store images to compensate so you don't see the glitch. I believe the above is the source of your problem, the solution is to get a DVD player with memory.
Rating:
Summary: Loses something on the small screen
Review: This movie is truly great, but it seems to lose a bit of its power on the small screen. Makes me long for the old days at the Thalia theater in Manhattan, when they'd have revivals of gems like this. (sigh)
Rating: 
Summary: Warning - Possible Defective DVDs of Rashomon
Review: There may have been a bad bunch run off by Criterion. I bought the Special Edition... on April 13.
That copy had the picture breaking up very badly in the middle of Chapter 10.
I returned the disc on April 19 and was given another. The second copy also breaks up at the same place
(Chapter 10 - 1 hr, 10 min, 29 or 30 seconds into the movie). Twice in a row sounds like a fault in the pressing. Be warned. (The rating only refers to the problem in the disk. I cannot praise the movie enough. This was one I was looking forward to on DVD and I hope they find and fix the problem soon so I can buy a better copy.) Follow-up, 23 Apr 2002...
Criterion has been unable to duplicate this problem,
and so far no one else has mentioned anything like this. I cannot rule out a problem with the player, but have reasons to consider it highly unlikely. That player (Panasonic RV-31) has been quite reliable and handles disks that would not even play on an earlier Sony machine. However, Criterion DID get back to me and said that they had tried, on in-house machines. I will try again, with a copy from another store in case
this is a real problem confined to a very few disks. So, I stand by my warning, but suggest you try the disk, anyway. The rest of the disk is truly excellent, and if you get
through chapter 10 without any problems, mine may have
been a freak occurance.
Rating:
Summary: A great presentation of a great film.
Review: "Roshomon" is a great film. Kurosawa attempted to re-capture the beauty of silent films, with their focus on imagery over dialog. The twisting plot, the characters, all combing to make a unique viewing experience. Mifune is wild, larger than life. I have heard that each actor in "Roshomon" was given a traditional Noh mask on which to base their character. It is a considered film. Criterion's Kurosawa DVDs get a little better with every release. "Roshomon" surpasses earlier releases with a cavalcade of extras. The Robert Altman interview is nice, comparable to the George Lucas interview for "Hidden Fortress." I appreciate Donald Richie's commentary. I wish that other Criterion Kurosawa DVDs had his commentary recorded. There is a nice documentary on the cinematographer. My favorite extra is the collection of the original stories "Roshomon" and "In the Grove." They are in booklet form, and not electronic as I feared. I am excited for Criterion to release more Kurosawa on DVD. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Region
Review: This is a Region 1 only disk
Rating:
Summary: Truth & Illusion.
Review: If you have never seen this film, you will come to it and find it very familiar. That's because Rashomon has become part of the world's consciousness & lexicon. It's story of an action involving several participants, each with their own differing version of the truth, has been elaborated and riffed-on by many others since it appeared on the world's stage in the 50's. So, it is an old movie, often imitated. And yet, I found it fresh and involving and well worth a look. As Robert Altman says on the DVD extras, many of the camera techniques, particularly shooting directly at the sun and allowing lens flare, were taboo-breaking and radically new when this film appeared. Now, that is put in as a joke in Shrek. So you come to Rashomon not to be overwhelmed with its "newness" and the refreshing change of first encountering Japanese cinema and acting styles. No, you come to Rashomon as to an old master, to appreciate its lasting impression of the universality of human foibles and passions and the illusory nature of truth. A rape and murder have occured in a woods. We hear and see different versions of the same encounter. Who is telling the truth? Is there an absolute objective truth, or does every teller of the tale inherently only tell the truth as he sees it? And if everyone is a "liar" and there is no absolute truth, what is the point of anything? Don't let the heavy questions mislead you. Rashomon moves quickly, fluidly and gracefully, telling its story with economy and, to me, humor. Much is made of the dark philosophy underneath the theme, but I find great sardonic humor in the film. One example, the fight between the thief & the man as related by the woodcutter...it is messy and unheroic, sweaty, breathless and awkward and the antithesis of the stylized balletic sword fights found in, even Kurosawa's, samurai movies. In the end, as familiar and much copied as Rashomon has been, it is still like no other film. It is unique, and the result of a master filmaker's vision, unified and beautiful and unforgettable.
Rating:
Summary: Technical Review
Review: Just got Criterion's Rashomon a couple days ago. I'm very happy with it--it's hard not to like anything Criterion puts out. Having seen the movie on VHS many times, I was curious to see if there would be a lot of difference in the picture quality. It is very good. Actually, I think the transfer is a better one that Seven Samaraui which seems odd since that was made a few years later. But maybe Criterion had better source material or has just improved its techniques--I don't know. Comparing the additional commentary to others from Criterion--particularly Seven Samaraui--I find it moderately good. Donald Richie may be an expert in Japanese film but he tends to rehash some of the same ideas over and over as he goes through the movie. The packaging which includes reprints of the Rashomon source stories is beautiful. I'm glad Criterion is puting this information in book form instead of in some goofy screen-display format which they were doing briefly. The audio is what I expected: a muddy mono typical of films from that period. But I do hear Fumio Hayasaka's arrangements better and that's nice. The marriage of images and sound that portray the woodcutter entering the forest seem better than I remembered them in the VHS version. I hope this helps you. I'm sure there are a lot of other reviews that will detail the plot for you.
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