Rashômon

A man is dead, a woman was raped, and that's all that can be definitely said. Somebody has committed murder, but nobody knows whodunnit. And that's the basic plot of Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon," a hauntingly pessimistic look at how the "truth" can be warped and changed by different people's perspectives. It's a magnificently eerie piece of work, filled with suspense and some really astounding acting -- particularly from Toshiro Mifune as a laughing bandit. At the Rashomon Gate in eleventh-century Japan, a man (Kichijiro Ueda) takes shelter with a priest (Minoru Chiaki) and a woodcutter... more

Rashomon was the first movie where Akira Kurosawa really found his filmmaking voice. Visually, Rashomon is stunning. The techniques used by Kurosawa were years ahead of their time. The outdoor filming, especially in the forest, gives the film an authenticity that you just can't get on a soundstage. As far as the story goes, there is enough ambiguity to keep people discussing this movie for decades. Is it about lying? Distorted memories? People lying to themselves? Selfishness? Or is it about all of the above? Kurosawa's story of a murder told from four different points of view that come... more

Rashomon is one of the relatively few movies that truly deserves the name "classic." There are so many reasons why Rashomon is worth watching and so much has already been said about the movie, but here's my take. I watched it recently with my wife and my 16 and 15 year old kids, and I could tell that although it wasn't one my kids would have chosen, they understood that they were in the presence of something greater than the typical movie they've seen. So why should you watch Rashomon? 1. It's a groundbreaking film. Many of Kurosawa's techniques were cutting edge at the time Rashomon was... more